Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控), which owns Taiwan's second-largest life insurance company, is in merger talks with both local and overseas investors, company president Frank Cheng (鄭弘志) said.
"We have to become bigger in size, and a merger is a good way to achieve this," Cheng told reporters today at a ceremony to mark the renaming of its banking unit, which is now an nationwide lender. The company is open to all options, he added, refusing to elaborate.
Shin Kong renamed the former United-Credit Commercial Bank (聯信銀行), based in Taichung as Shin Kong Commercial Bank(
"The addition of the bank allows Shin Kong Financial to provide a full range of financial services," said bank Chairman Patrick Liang (梁成金) in the briefing.
Liang, a former deputy central bank governor, was hired to reorganize United-Credit's finances.
The bank, which has 28 branches, plans to strengthen its consumer banking business and issue 1 million credit cards next year from 100,000 currently, Liang said.
Shinkong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽), Taiwan's No.2 life insurer, has total available funds of NT$800 billion for investment, said Victor Hsu (許澎), the insurer's chief financial officer.
About 32 percent of the fund is now invested overseas, mostly in fixed-income assets, 23 percent in domestic bonds and treasury bills, 5.5 percent in domestic stocks, 11 percent in local real estate, and 12 percent in loans, he said.
The insurer always keeps its domestic stock investment below 6 percent of its total fund in a bid to control risk, Hsu said.
It plans to increase its overseas investment to 35 percent of the total fund next year, he said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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