Michael Chang (
"I accepted the Ministry of Finance's offer to take up the long-vacant post on Wednesday," Chang said in a phone interview yesterday.
Restructuring will be his first priority after assuming the office of the nation's fifth largest financial group by assets, Chang said.
Chang wouldn't reveal any details of his restructuring plan, although he did say that it would not involve any layoffs.
First Financial is likely to form strategic partnership with foreign financial institutions in the future in a bid to sharpen its marketing and new product design capabilities, he added.
Chang's appointment, however, sparked market speculation about government plans to sell the financial holding firm.
"Based on his past performance, Chang could be a tool for the authorities to implement certain policies," SinoPac Securities Corp's (建華證券) finance analyst Chu Yu-cun (朱玉君) said.
It is likely that Chang could promote the sale of First Financial as a trigger for the government's consolidation plan to halve the number of financial holding firms to seven by year end, Chu said.
Chang yesterday downplayed the rumors, saying that he "was not appointed for this reason."
Chang, 58, a certified public account, started his banking career as a superintendent of First Commercial Bank (
In 2004, Chang was appointed to chair the ill-performing Bank of Overseas Chinese (
Last September, Chang was appointed to head Taiwan Business Bank after the lender's failed share sale. Under his leadership, the bank's defaulted loan ratio has dropped to 2.35 percent from around 4.6 percent through huge write-offs of over NT$13-billion in bad debt.
Improved performance had prompted state-controlled Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控) to acquire a 26-percent stake in the bank by the end of this quarter. Taiwan Business Bank is slated to be merged in the next three years, in accordance with the government's goal of consolidating state banks.
On the strength of his achievements and, reportedly, close ties to the first family, Chang beat out rivals rumored to include Land Bank of Taiwan (
Responding to Chang's appointment, First Bank Industrial Union (
"We expect a long-term, committed chairmanship, not just the short-term measures that Chang instituted at Taiwan Business Bank," First Bank Industrial Union Chairman Chi Sheng-li (紀勝利) said.
First Financial employees were counting on Chang to ensure the bank's sustainable operation, rather than put it up for sale, Chi said.
First Financial is slated to hold a board directors meeting to approve the appointment next Monday.
Shares of First Financial closed down 1.02 percent at NT$24.25 on the stock exchange yesterday.
SinoPac Securities set a target price of NT$26 for First Financial shares over the next three months. A merger would represent a bigger upside, boosting the target price to NT$30, the brokerage said.
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