First Financial Holding Co (
The three subsidiaries were First Taisec Securities (
According to the company's statement, the swap-share ratio was 0.82:1 between First Financial and First Taisec, 1.96:1 between First Financial and Mingtai, and 1.49:1 between First Financial and National Investment.
Celebrating the merger, First Financial chairman Jerome Chen (陳建隆) said that the financial-service company's assets have increased to NT$1.5 trillion and it now has a total of 284 branches nationwide and 22 overseas.
"Our goal is to work as a retail bank which provides a variety of financial products in order to facilitate clients' one-stop shopping at any one of our 280 branches," Chen said yesterday.
The merger came just one day after First Financial announced that it may not meet its earnings target of NT$5.8 billion this year with estimated NT$1.51 earnings per share.
According to local Chinese-language media reports yesterday, First Financial president Ray Dawn (董瑞彬) said that the company plans to write off NT$25 billion to NT$30 billion in bad loans by the year's end and, therefore, its balance sheet may show losses for the next two years.
Dawn was also quoted as saying the company is expected to revise downward its earnings target for this year. New estimates have not been released so far.
First Financial, however, has met 69 percent of its profit target for this year as of June 30, with a pre-tax earning of NT$4 billion.
Mei Chiang (蔣梅香), an analyst with Taiwan Ratings Corp (中華信評) -- the local arm of Standard & Poor's -- yesterday said that the agency is expected to retain its "stable" outlook for First Financial because it has taken the company's possible revision of earning targets into consideration.
Shares of First Financial fell NT$0.60, or 3 percent, to NT$19.50 on the TAIEX yesterday.
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