Michael Chang (
"I am here to revamp the bank, not to sell the bank," Chang said at the handover and inauguration ceremony yesterday. "I have communicated this to the bank's union to make my stance known."
Chang, 57, said he will neither lay off employees nor sell the bank directly, or indirectly.
No sale planned
"Mergers are not my area of expertise," he said, adding that Minister of Finance Lin Chuan (
Chang took up his position at Polaris Financial Group late last month after leaving as chair at the Bank of Overseas Chinese (
The government, which has a 41 percent stake in the bank, last month attempted to auction off its shares as a part of a plan to consolidate Taiwan's crowded banking sector.
The government plans to halve the number of state-owned banks to six by the end of this year.
But the share sale prompted strong opposition from the bank's union, which staged a four-day strike, said to be the first industrial action in the nation's finance sector, which reportedly scared away the most likely buyer, E.Sun Financial Holding Co (
Chang, a banker who is a certified public accountant, was praised by the Ministry of Finance for his success in revitalizing the then debt-ridden Bank of Overseas Chinese (
Chang's appointment sparked market speculation that he might attempt to continue the sale of the bank by introducing new shareholders through a recapitalization approach, but he denied this yesterday.
Bad loans
He said his priority is to improve the bank's assets quality and tackle its bad-loan problem.
"The method that worked well at the Bank of Overseas Chinese will not necessarily suit the Taiwan Business Bank," he said.
If the bank really needs recapitalization, the scale will be small, in light of the bank's abundant paid-in capital of NT$42.8 billion, compared with the then ailing Bank of Overseas Chinese's NT$11.8 billion, he added.
Therefore, this would not cause a shift in the bank's management but, at most, would lead to one position on the bank's 15-seat board being given away, Chang said.
In response, Lin Wan-fu (
"The union will call a strike again if the sale resumes," Lin said.
Looking forward, Chang said he hoped the bank would become more innovative and design novel and differentiated financial products like bank insurance and securitization products.
"We may look for partnership with overseas financial institutions for this purpose," Chang said, "but we do not have any specific objects for the moment."
The bank's shares yesterday closed unchanged at NT$8.82 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last