Fubon Financial eyeing auction of problem banks

Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), the nation's sixth largest financial holding firm, may consider buying the outlet network of three banks taken over by the financial authorities if the government auctions them off, the company said over the weekend.

"We want to continue to expand our banking arm's branch network," Fubon Financial chairman Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) told reporters on the sidelines of the company's year-end banquet on Saturday night.

"Of course we are interested in evaluating the feasibility of taking over those bank outlets if the government decides to sell them," he added.

The Financial Supervisory Commission has taken over Taitung Business Bank, Enterprise Bank of Hualien (花蓮企銀) and The Chinese Bank (中華銀行), which collectively operate 99 branches nationwide.

The commission plans to sell the banks by auction after cleaning up their asset sheets. The financial regulator, however, has not decided on the form of auction -- as a package deal or separately.

"The Chinese Bank can continue to operate and we will sell it as soon as possible," Susan Chang (張秀蓮), vice chairwoman of the commission said in a telephone interview yesterday.

The Chinese Bank faces a NT$15 billion (US$460 million) funding gap after a run on the bank on Friday, the company said in a statement to the stock exchange the same day.

"It may take four or five months to settle matters," Chang said. "We'll get advice on how to proceed, whether to sell each bank individually, or to sell non-performing loans first."

But buying branches does not equal obtaining market share, Fubon Financial president Victor Ku Kung (龔天行) said, adding that it is a better deal to buy well-managed banks that possess good customer bases and portfolios.

Also, state banks cannot be ignored as targets for mergers and acquisitions if the company wants to achieve a 10-percent share of the local banking market, given the fact that the nation's top six banks are all state-controlled lenders, Kung said.

Taipei Fubon Bank (台北富邦銀行) currently operates 120 outlets across Taiwan.

Meanwhile, with an experienced and a capable team, Taipei Fubon vowed to win the exclusive rights to run the sports lottery when the tender comes up this year, Kung said. The bank has been the manager of the public welfare lottery for the past five years.

Additional reporting by Bloomberg