The fate of debt-ridden Chung Shing Bank (
"The pricing discrepancy [between bidders and the government] was too big to close the deal," Vice Minister of Finance Susan Chang (
Chang refused to reveal bid amounts or say what the ministry's floor price was.
Yesterday's tender was the second attempt to sell off the bank, which first went on the auction block in January.
The Land Bank of Taiwan (土銀) and Cerberus Asia Ltd -- a US-based asset management company -- participated in yesterday's auction.
But Cerberus' managing director Jaideep Krishna and Land Bank Chairman Wei Chi-lin (
A major sticking point is how much the government should pay the successful bidder to take over the bank, which is holding a portfolio in which 57.24 percent of the loans are thought to be bad.
According to Chang, the government's Financial Restructuring Fund (金融重建基金) set a base price before accepting bids yesterday. Auction organizer Central Deposit Insurance Corp (中央存保) was authorized to close the deal within 10 percent of the base price.
"Naturally, all I can say is that the price discrepancy was greater than 10 percent," Chang said.
She also refused reveal to details of several independent assessments of Chung Shing's financial portfolio, saying only that "the bank was further in the red after its March assessment."
The finance ministry's March assessment found that the bank was in the hole by NT$29.8 billion and was likely to cost the government more than that amount when sold off.
Lee Yung-san (
Market analysts have put the figure at NT$60 billion, which is all that is left in the Financial Restructuring Fund.
After yesterday's bidding process failed, Chang said the fund plans to change conditions of the sale to make it more attractive to buyers. She said Chung Shing's impaired assets and non-performing collateral will be negotiated separately.
"The condition is that the government will be entitled to share in the gains or shoulder part of losses with the actual return of these non-performing collateral later on within a certain period of time, say, three to five years," Chang said.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is