E.Sun Financial Holdings Co (
At the partnership's launching ceremony this afternoon, Prudential Corporation Asia is expected to announce its plan to buy 5 percent of E. Sun Financial -- the nation's eighth-largest financial-service provider, and become its second-largest shareholder next to the biggest shareholder Cathay Life Insurance Co's (
The deal is worth NT$2.7 billion (US$81 million), based on E. Sun's closing share price last Friday, the paper said.
The company's stocks rose 1.84 percent to close at NT$22.1 per share on Friday.
Vice Premier Lin Hsin-yi (
In November 2001, the government allowed banks, securities houses and insurance companies to combine into financial-holding companies in order to cross-sell various financial products.
So far 14 financial-holding companies have been established.
Lin, however, has said the ministry was looking forward to further consolidation among these companies.
Lin also said that the government plans to take the initiative in releasing shares of state-controlled banks including First Financial Holding Co (
Unfortunately, First Financial's share-sale plan, which is awaiting legislative approval, has been shelved during the legislative review sessions.
Financial authorities believe that the share-swap deal between E. Sun and Prudential will help create value-added benefits to the local lender, which offers banking, securities brokerage and asset-management services.
The partnership will also complete E. Sun's business scope by launching insurance products to create synergy while beefing up its international competitiveness.
As of Sept. 30 last year, E. Sun posted NT$3.9 billion in nine-month revenue. It also estimated to reap NT$5.1 billion in full-year before-tax earnings last year with an estimated NT$2.18 earning per share.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to