The cash-strapped Cosmos Bank (萬泰銀行), the nation's biggest cash card issuer, said yesterday that it has secured both local and overseas investors to help relieve its financial difficulty, after the financial regulator demanded a fund injection of at least NT$5 billion (US$150 million) by the end of next month.
"Our fundraising plan is progressing smoothly," Cosmos spokesman Shih Kung-liang (施坤良) said in a telephone interview yesterday.
Fresh capital will come from both local and foreign investors, Shih said, declining to give more details and citing confidentiality agreements.
The debt-ridden bank announced last month a large-scale recapitalization plan to raise a total of NT$21.2 billion by the end of the third quarter to bolster its weakened financial structure following the consumer credit abuse storm last year.
Cosmos reported a loss of NT$11.28 billion last year. It has to address an unamortized loss exceeding NT$29 billion from the sale of bad loans.
Shih said the bank is confident of meeting the Financial Supervisory Commission's deadline.
As GE Consumer Financial, Cosmos' single largest shareholder with a 10 percent stake, remained mum on their participation in the fundraising plan, the intentions of Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽), the bank's second largest shareholder with more than a 5 percent holding, attracted the market's attention.
Shin Kong Life's chairman Eugene Wu (吳東進) is the son-in-law of Hsu Sheng-fa (許勝發), the founder and chairman of Cosmos.
Wu was seen by the Taipei Times meeting with Gary Kuo (郭冠群), chairman of Morgan Stanley Taiwan Ltd, the financial advisor of Cosmos' fundraising plan, at a restaurant on Thursday night.
"We were just having a chat," Kuo said in a telephone interview with the Taipei Times yesterday.
Kuo declined to discuss whether Shin Kong would financially aid Cosmos and the current progress of the fundraising, saying that he is not in a position to comment due to a confidentiality agreement.
"This is a too sensitive a time for us to comment on anything to do with Cosmos," Victor Hsu (許澎), spokesman of parent company Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控), said by telephone.
Hsu said it was normal for Shin Kong to maintain close contact with Kuo because Morgan Stanley had offered financial advisory services to the bank on an array of deals in recent years, including Shin Kong's takeover of Macoto Bank (誠泰銀行) in April 2005 and Shin Kong's strategic investment in MasterLink Securities Co (元富證券) last July.
On Tuesday, Hsu told investors that the company would "comply with corporate governance rules" over its stake in Cosmos.
The company would obtain board directors' approval beforehand if it should wish to increase its holding in the lender, Hsu said.
Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Monday introduced the company’s latest supercomputer platform, featuring six new chips made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), saying that it is now “in full production.” “If Vera Rubin is going to be in time for this year, it must be in production by now, and so, today I can tell you that Vera Rubin is in full production,” Huang said during his keynote speech at CES in Las Vegas. The rollout of six concurrent chips for Vera Rubin — the company’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) computing platform — marks a strategic
REVENUE PERFORMANCE: Cloud and network products, and electronic components saw strong increases, while smart consumer electronics and computing products fell Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted 26.51 percent quarterly growth in revenue for last quarter to NT$2.6 trillion (US$82.44 billion), the strongest on record for the period and above expectations, but the company forecast a slight revenue dip this quarter due to seasonal factors. On an annual basis, revenue last quarter grew 22.07 percent, the company said. Analysts on average estimated about NT$2.4 trillion increase. Hon Hai, which assembles servers for Nvidia Corp and iPhones for Apple Inc, is expanding its capacity in the US, adding artificial intelligence (AI) server production in Wisconsin and Texas, where it operates established campuses. This
US President Donald Trump on Friday blocked US photonics firm HieFo Corp’s US$3 million acquisition of assets in New Jersey-based aerospace and defense specialist Emcore Corp, citing national security and China-related concerns. In an order released by the White House, Trump said HieFo was “controlled by a citizen of the People’s Republic of China” and that its 2024 acquisition of Emcore’s businesses led the US president to believe that it might “take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.” The order did not name the person or detail Trump’s concerns. “The Transaction is hereby prohibited,”
Garment maker Makalot Industrial Co (聚陽) yesterday reported lower-than-expected fourth-quarter revenue of NT$7.93 billion (US$251.44 million), down 9.48 percent from NT$8.76 billion a year earlier. On a quarterly basis, revenue fell 10.83 percent from NT$8.89 billion, company data showed. The figure was also lower than market expectations of NT$8.05 billion, according to data compiled by Yuanta Securities Investment and Consulting Co (元大投顧), which had projected NT$8.22 billion. Makalot’s revenue this quarter would likely increase by a mid-teens percentage as the industry is entering its high season, Yuanta said. Overall, Makalot’s revenue last year totaled NT$34.43 billion, down 3.08 percent from its record NT$35.52
RSS