Despite prosecutors' probes into a disputed takeover bid of Mega Financial Holding Co (
"We will consult with the Ministry of Finance first and decide whether to dispose of or increase our holdings in Mega Financial," Charles Lo (
Chinatrust Financial and its banking unit currently hold an 11.1 percent stake in state-controlled Mega Financial.
In July, the Financial Supervisory Commission banned Chinatrust Financial's expansion, investment, and fundraising plans, penalizing the company for misuse of funds and improperly benefiting a third party during its purchase of the Mega Financial stake. The commission required it to offload a 3.9 percent stake in Mega Financial acquired through a flawed process.
Lo yesterday called on the commission to scrap the penalties as early as possible, as the restrictions have affected the firm's overseas operations.
Chinatrust Financial has 70 bank outlets worldwide, contributing 15 percent of its annual profits, according to the company.
The commission's secretary- general, Austin Chan (
But Chan said the commission had completed a financial inspection of Chinatrust's improvements in internal control required by the regulator and is compiling the information into a report.
Lo said Chinatrust Financial will not change its expansion plan through organic growth or acquisition in home and overseas markets.
"A 5 percent market share is not enough ... and we will not change our merger and acquisition strategy," Lo said.
"We are ambitious about overseas expansion, which is our focus in the future," he said.
He also said the introduction of strategic foreign investors to dilute family holdings was not a priority of the financial holding firm.
"Do you think it is possible?" Lo said when answering reporters' questions about the plan for the Koos family to gradually step aside from the management lineup.
"Chairman Jeffrey Koo (辜濂松) created and developed the business from scratch. The company is like one of his children," Lo added.
The restructuring of the board members lineup to get rid of the family business image is crucial to Chinatrust Financial, said Jesse Wang (王嘉樞), head of equity research at BNP Paribas Securities (Taiwan) Co.
"The company will not be able to win [investors'] trust if they cannot make improvements," Wang warned.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance yesterday said it is just a shareholder of Mega Financial and has no position to comment on how Chinatrust Financial should deal with its shareholding in the state-run financial institution.
If the financial regulator demands that Chinatrust Financial dump all its shares in Mega Financial, Chinatrust Financial's four board seats will therefore be dissolved.
As two private directors on the 15-member board resigned in June, a total of six vacancies on the board will lead to a by-election in accordance with regulations, said Deputy Minister of Finance Liu Teng-cheng (劉燈城).
But whether Mega Financial chairman Cheng Shen-chih (鄭深池), who presents private shareholders, can maintain his seat, Liu merely said it depends on the board structure following the by-election.
The government currently holds nearly 23 percent and 7 board seats in Mega Financial.
additional reporting by Jackie Lin
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],”
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
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