■ Foreigners eye Taitung Bank
The Financial Supervisory Com-mission may not use the government's financial restructuring fund to take over Taitung Business Bank (台東企銀) as planned, because of a pending acquisition by a foreign company, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported yesterday.
The paper said that Continental Holdings Ltd of Hong Kong may buy shares in the bank, without saying where it got the information.
Taitung Bank has an asset to liability shortfall of NT$2.84 billion (US$88 million).
■ Mosaid sues Mosel
Mosaid Technologies Inc, a Cana-dian chip designer based in Ottawa, announced on Thursday that it has filed a lawsuit against Taiwanese memory chipmaker Mosel Vitelic Inc (茂矽) for patent infringement, the company said in a statement.
Mosel joined Micron Technology Inc, Taiwanese makers of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體) and ProMOS Technologies Inc (茂德科技) as defendants of a complaint Mosaid filed in the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, in July.
MOSAID alleged that Mosel had infringed six of the patents already asserted against each of Micron, Powerchip and ProMOS, it said in the statement. These patents were being asserted against DRAM products, it said.
A spokesman of Mosel said the company will comment on the case after receiving the official writ.
■ CAL to fly cargo to Sweden
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 華航), the nation's leading international carrier, said yesterday it will launch an all-cargo service to Stockholm, Sweden, with two flights a week from Wednesday.
"It is the first time for China Airlines or any Taiwan carrier to make inroads into Northern Europe in cargo services. We are seeing rising demand out there," a CAL spokesman said.
Including new route, CAL provides all-cargo services to seven destinations in Europe and 10 across the world, the spokesman said.
■ UK insurer looks to Asian profit
Britain's second-largest insurer, Prudential, said yesterday it expects its life operations in Asia at least to double profit from new business in the next three years, helping to offset slower growth at home.
Prudential already makes almost half its new business profit in Asia, where it is spread across 12 markets. Asia is also Prudential's fastest growing region, followed by the US.
"We expect our life business in Asia at least to double 2005 new business profits by 2009," said Barry Stowe, the newly appointed chief executive of Prudential Corp Asia.
Prudential's biggest markets in Asia by gross premiums are Singapore and Hong Kong, followed by Taiwan. Falling bond yields have hit Prudential in Taiwan, after it wrote whole of life contracts with guarantees that now lock it into losses, but it said new business, focused on less capital intensive unit-linked products, was attractive.
■ NT dollar stronger
The New Taiwan dollar reached the strongest level against its US counterpart yesterday since July on increased purchases of domestic stocks by foreign investors.
The NT dollar rose NT$0.062 to close at NT$32.370 on the Taipei foreign exchange market yesterday, on turnover of US$1.27 billion.
The local currency rose to as high as NT$32.25 during the session, which was the strongest level since July 11.
Foreign fund managers bought shares every day this week, boosting the currency 1.4 percent over the same period.
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