The nation's top financial regulator said the first takeover of a bank in Taiwan by an overseas investor will take place this year.
"Several real deals are entering final negotiations soon," Kong Jaw-sheng (
Kong, seeking to consolidate the nation's almost 50 lenders to improve their efficiency, said Taiwan's plan is more attractive than investing in lenders in China because the investor gets management control. The acquirer would gain access to a US$700 billion banking market where the number of millionaires swelled 6.4 percent last year to 55,400, according to a June 10 report issued by Merrill Lynch & Co.
"Taiwan is more open than China and you can take management control over a Taiwanese bank as a test before you go to China," said Andrew Chen, who oversees the equivalent of US$2.4 billion as president of HSBC Asset Management Taiwan in Taipei. "Taiwan also offers business opportunities in wealth management and channels to get contacts with Taiwanese businessmen in China."
Kong, appointed the top financial regulator in July 2004, said executives of several leading European and US financial companies have visited him to discuss investment targets.
China's "big four" banks are reorganizing themselves, including cutting their non-performing loans and selling stakes to strategic investors, to tap foreigners' expertise ahead of initial public offerings. The country allows overseas banks to buy up to 25 percent of its domestic lenders, with one financial institutional not acquiring more than 20 percent.
"In China, they invest huge money but can't get management control," Kong said in the interview. "In Taiwan, we can allow them to have management control or even 100 percent ownership of a bank. They can also leverage Taiwanese talent and systems to expand their businesses in Asia."
The commission has recently proposed further openings toward financial ties with China.
"I proposed Taiwanese banks can acquire smaller-sized regional or city banks in China if they have trading licenses of yuan," said Kong. "This still needs approval by the Cabinet and the President's Office, but I think it's just a matter of time."
Kong said the proposal is not for Taiwanese banks to buy big Chinese lenders or even second-tier national banks, as they will need a large capital base. Currently, seven Taiwanese banks have representative offices in China waiting to be upgraded to branches.
Kong will lead a delegation, including senior executives from 16 of Taiwan's leading companies, to attend an investor forum in New York on Oct. 13-14 and London on Oct. 17-18, sponsored by Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC.
"Our main purposes are to update industry development, financial reform and improve industry competitiveness," Kong said. The Taiwanese companies being represented include Cathay Financial Holding Co (
He will use the opportunity to introduce the commission's planned foreign currency-denominated stock exchange, the so-called international board, to overseas investors.
The commission plans to start operations of the international board by early next year, Kong said.
"For the first year of operation, we expect 10 to 20 listings of good companies," Kong said. "Within two years, we wish to have 60-80 listings; three to five years, more than 100."
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day