■ Share prices up
Taiwan share prices closed 0.24 percent higher yesterday following significant gains posted on Wall Street last week, dealers said.
Despite some technical pressure, the market still closed in positive territory, supported by expectations of quarter-end window dressing.
The weighted index was up 18.50 points at 7,877.82, off a low of 7,853.15 and a high of 7,887.33, on turnover of NT$104.89 billion (US$3.17 billion).
First Taisec Securities (一銀證券) manager Stanley Hsu said expectations of window-dressing before investors close their books for the quarter were the main theme, leaving the bourse to move in a narrow range this week.
■ Chunghwa ups MOD target
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), the nation's leading telecom operator, said yesterday it has targeted 580,000 multimedia on demand (MOD) subscribers by the end of this year, up sharply on a revised target for last year.
The number of MOD users reached some 260,000 at the end of January, it said.
"We are gearing up efforts to provide competitive content and offer more value added services to boost the public interest in MOD," a company official said.
In October, Chunghwa Telecom halved its MOD user target to 250,000 from the previously estimated 500,000 for last year.
■ Fubon could split banking unit
Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠), chairman of Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), said once again yesterday the group is considering separating its banking unit and reducing family control for future expansion in the region.
Strong family control could hinder a bank's growth and expansion across the borders. As a result, they are thinking about dividing its banking and insurance business and introducing foreign partners into the bank to dilute family shareholdings, Tsai said in a media event yesterday.
The executive, however, did not elaborate on the means of division and whether they have planned to isolate its banking arm from the parent financial group umbrella.
This was a preliminary idea to test the water and investors' response. If implemented, the project could require up to three years to come true, Tsai said.
Fubon Financial, the nation's sixth-biggest financial group by asset, owns a group of subsidiaries, including Taipei Fubon Bank (台北富邦銀行), Fubon Bank (Hong Kong) Ltd, and Fubon Insurance Co (富邦產險), the nation's largest property and casualty insurer.
■ BenQ refuses to pay for Mobile
BenQ Corp (明基), the nation's largest maker of branded consumer electronics, said it is not obliged to pay 500 million euros (US$634 million) sought by the insolvency administrator of the company's bankrupt German subsidiary.
BenQ "does not believe there is a legal basis" for the claim, the Taipei-based parent company said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
Martin Prager, the insolvency administrator of BenQ Mobile GmbH & Co, may seek about 500 million euros from the Taiwanese parent as part of efforts to repay 1.2 billion euros owed by the German unit, his spokeswoman said last week.
BenQ cut funding to the Munich-based unit in September last year, a year after taking over the unprofitable handset business from Siemens AG.
The administrator is liquidating BenQ Mobile's assets to repay 4,350 creditors, Prager spokeswoman Regine Petzsch said.
■ NT drops against greenback
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, decreasing NT$0.016 to close at NT$33.056 on turnover of US$990 million.
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