■ Executives indicted
Shinkong Financial Holding Co (新光金控) chairman Eugene Wu (吳東進) and his finacial adviser Wu Tung-hsiung (吳統雄) were indicted yesterday by the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office on suspicion of insider trading, after the collapsed merger between Shinkong Financial and Taishin Financial Holdings Co (台新金控) in 2002. The two companies announced on June 25, 2002, that they would merge in a share swap deal. But to facilitate the deal, Taishin had asked Shinkong to set aside an additional NT$19.6 billion to cover potential losses stemming from higher insurance policy claims. Because of the additional provision, Shinkong later decided to report an after-tax loss of NT$8.82 billion instead of an earlier forecast of NT$3.96 billion profit that year, which angering Taishin, which called off the merger on July 3 the same year. Prosecutors accused Eugene Wu and Wu Tung-hsiung of insider trading of stocks, as they allegedly sold the Shinkong shares they owned two weeks before the announcement of revised financial forecast. Taishin chairman Thomas Wu (吳東亮) is the younger brother of Eugene Wu.
■ CAL, Delta share codes
Taiwan's leading carrier China Airlines (CAL, 華航) said yesterday it will expand code-sharing services with US-based Delta Air Lines starting Monday. CAL will add three additional code-sharing destinations on Delta flights from Los Angeles to Orlando, Fort Lauderdale and Tampa while Delta will place its codes on CAL flights from Taipei to Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, it said. The new services will allow passengers to fly to Atlanta, Cincinnati, Salt Lake City, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale and Tampa via Los Angeles, or from San Francisco to Atlanta, or from Honolulu to Los Angeles and San Francisco. CAL will operate 13 destinations in the US after the expanded code-sharing. Meanwhile, Delta will place its codes on CAL flights from Honolulu, Los Angeles, New York (JFK), San Francisco and Seattle to Taipei, and onward to Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur.
■ E-mail filter launched
New e-mail filtering software developed by two domestic universities was launched yesterday, with its creators claiming it can filter some 97 percent of junk mails, the National Chung Cheng University (NCCU) announced. According to Kuo Yao-huang (郭耀煌), the software, dubbed "Nopam, " was jointly developed by NCCU and National Tsinghua University, and can handle more than 1 million e-mails in Intel Pentium 4 computers per day, with the error margin of less than 0.01 percent. This software will be offered to various schools or academic sectors of the country for free, Kuo said, adding that he is proud of the achievement. NCCU Professor Lee Hsing-lin (李新林) noted that the research and development of computer software is quite difficult in Taiwan, as few entrepreneurs are willing to dedicate themselves to this area, and therefore it needs long-term efforts. Wu Sheng (吳昇), director of NCCU's Internet center, said some junk mails are disguised in different versions to elude e-mail filtering software, but Nopam can compare the sources, contents, titles, the similarity, or whether they are sent in quantities to find these junk mails.
■ NT dollar gains
The New Taiwan dollar continued gaining ground against its US counterpart, rising NT$0.013 to close at NT$31.892 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$597 million, down from US$753 million the previous day.
Merida Industry Co (美利達) has seen signs of recovery in the US and European markets this year, as customers are gradually depleting their inventories, the bicycle maker told shareholders yesterday. Given robust growth in new orders at its Taiwanese factory, coupled with its subsidiaries’ improving performance, Merida said it remains confident about the bicycle market’s prospects and expects steady growth in its core business this year. CAUTION ON CHINA However, the company must handle the Chinese market with great caution, as sales of road bikes there have declined significantly, affecting its revenue and profitability, Merida said in a statement, adding that it would
i Gasoline and diesel prices at fuel stations are this week to rise NT$0.1 per liter, as tensions in the Middle East pushed crude oil prices higher last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices last week rose for the third consecutive week due to an escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, as the market is concerned that the situation in the Middle East might affect crude oil supply, CPC and Formosa said in separate statements. Front-month Brent crude oil futures — the international oil benchmark — rose 3.75 percent to settle at US$77.01
RISING: Strong exports, and life insurance companies’ efforts to manage currency risks indicates the NT dollar would eventually pass the 29 level, an expert said The New Taiwan dollar yesterday rallied to its strongest in three years amid inflows to the nation’s stock market and broad-based weakness in the US dollar. Exporter sales of the US currency and a repatriation of funds from local asset managers also played a role, said two traders, who asked not to be identified as they were not authorized to speak publicly. State-owned banks were seen buying the greenback yesterday, but only at a moderate scale, the traders said. The local currency gained 0.77 percent, outperforming almost all of its Asian peers, to close at NT$29.165 per US dollar in Taipei trading yesterday. The
RECORD LOW: Global firms’ increased inventories, tariff disputes not yet impacting Taiwan and new graduates not yet entering the market contributed to the decrease Taiwan’s unemployment rate last month dropped to 3.3 percent, the lowest for the month in 25 years, as strong exports and resilient domestic demand boosted hiring across various sectors, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. After seasonal adjustments, the jobless rate eased to 3.34 percent, the best performance in 24 years, suggesting a stable labor market, although a mild increase is expected with the graduation season from this month through August, the statistics agency said. “Potential shocks from tariff disputes between the US and China have yet to affect Taiwan’s job market,” Census Department Deputy Director Tan Wen-ling
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