Bowa Bank (寶華銀行), one of the remaining four troubled lenders blacklisted by the financial regulator, announced yesterday its board had selected Herbert Chung (鍾甦生), chairman of Waterland Securities Co (國票證券), to take over at the helm.
The appointment is subject to approval by the Financial Supervisory Commission and is scheduled to take effect next Tuesday, the bank said in a filing to the GRETAI Securities Market yesterday.
Chung is to replace former chairman Kuo Cheng-chao (郭正昭) who quit last Friday, citing personal reasons.
Kuo's unexpected resignation sparked market concern over Bowa's weakening profitability and below-average asset quality. The resignation news led to a sell-off of the bank's shares on Monday -- the first trading day after the announcement.
Shares of Bowa closed up 6.97 percent at NT$2.15 yesterday.
The appointment of Chung, a seasoned banker, is expected to expedite the bank's self-help fundraising plan.
High credit costs
The lender saw its capitalization weaken significantly over the first three quarters of last year, mainly because of high credit costs arising from unsecured consumer lending and its failure to formulate a capital injection plan.
Bowa's BIS ratio dropped to only 6 percent at the end of June last year, below the regulatory minimum requirement of 8 percent. The ratio, also known as capital adequacy, is a measure of a bank's financial strength, usually expressed as the ratio of its capital to its assets.
The lender had said recently that it was in talks with interested foreign investors to seek an injection of NT$5 billion (US$151 million) of fresh funding, without elaborating.
The commission said earlier this week that the troubled lender would submit an updated self-bailout plan either through a merger or the introduction of foreign investors in the near future.
Prior to working at Waterland Securities, Chung held the chairmanship of Taiwan Business Bank (台灣企銀). He stepped down from that position in September 2005 after the lender's US$1 billion share sale collapsed following a labor union protest.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last