The board of Chang Hwa Bank (彰化銀行) decided in an ad hoc meeting on Saturday to hire financial advisers to decide the terms of a share swap plan with its biggest shareholder Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控), the nation's second-largest financial group by assets.
However, the Ministry of Finance has questioned the board's decision, citing "irregularities" in the handling of the meeting's procedures and called on the bank to convene another meeting.
Taishin Financial, the nation's second-largest credit card issuer, holds a 25 percent stake in and controls eight of the 15 board seats of Chang Hwa, the nation's seventh-largest lender by assets. The Ministry of Finance has an 18 percent stake in the bank.
Welcoming the board's decision, Taishin Financial said it would hire its own financial advisers to conduct a fair evaluation, according to Carol Lai (
But "we have no timetable [for the completion of the share swap] at the moment," Lai said in a telephone interview yesterday, dismissing a local newspaper report that the share swap will be completed within a year.
The Chinese-language Commercial Times reported yesterday that the two companies would proceed with the share swap within the next six months to a year to complete the acquisition, citing Taishin Financial chairman Thomas Wu (
But Lai said that Taishin Financial will have Chang Hwa delisted from the Taiwan Stock Exchange after completing the share swap.
After the swap, Taishin Financial's banking subsidiary, Taishin International Bank (
However, Chang Hwa's board meeting on Saturday did not proceed as smoothly as expected, as the four government-appointed board directors and one private board member walked out to express their dissatisfaction with what they termed "improper procedures."
According to a report by the Chinese-language Apple Daily, "the walkout was prompted by the discussion of the share swap issue, which was not originally included in the ad hoc meeting's agenda.
"The government does not oppose hiring financial advisers to conduct a share swap evaluation, but does question the procedure," the report quoted Vice Minister of Finance Liu Teng-cheng (
The ministry also issued a statement last night, saying that there were some "irregularities" in Saturday's meeting, such as the changes in the meeting's agenda, and had relayed its concern to Chang Hwa and Taishin Financial.
The ministry further asked Chang Hwa to convene a new board meeting in compliance with regulatory procedures.
Meanwhile, Wu said that Taishin Financial has invested more than NT$40 billion (US$1.2 billion) in its bid to acquire Chang Hwa.
The company is under growing pressure to expedite the merger with Chang Hwa Bank in the wake of Standard Chartered Bank's recent outright acquisition of Hsinchu International Bank (新竹國際商銀), which runs 83 branches nationwide.
"I can hardly sleep at night every time I think of how local banks can compete with foreign rivals with their aggressive expansion plans," the Commercial Times quoted Wu as saying.
The inclusion of Chang Hwa into Taishin Financial's umbrella will boost its total number of branches to 270 -- the highest in the country -- enhancing its customer-sharing and cross-selling opportunities, Wu said.
Chang Hwa's six overseas branches and one representative office in China can also help Taishin Financial's overseas development, he added.
Taishin Financial also called on the government to keep its promise of support for the winner of the bid for Chang Hwa. The company outbid six competitors with an offer of NT$36.6 billion (US$1.1 billion) for a 22 percent stake in Chang Hwa in July last year.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
Taiwanese prosecutors suspect that three people successfully smuggled at least one shipment of Nvidia Corp artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China after first exporting them to Japan, people familiar with the matter said. The trio was detained last week by the Keelung District Prosecutors’ Office for allegedly falsifying documents related to exports of Super Micro Computer Inc servers containing advanced Nvidia chips, which the US has barred from sale to China without a license from Washington. The move marked Taiwan’s first public crackdown on AI chip diversion after years of pressure from the US to take a more active role in curtailing
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) employee bonuses are likely to grow more than 30 percent this year, in line with the past few years as the company’s profits continue to set new records, an anonymous source cited TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) as saying yesterday. TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, is committed to taking care of its workers, the source said, citing Wei’s meeting with employees yesterday morning. Wei also expressed gratitude to employees for their contribution to the company’s improving bottom line, the source added. Since 2023, TSMC’s employee bonuses have grown at an annual rate of
RSS