Union Insurance Co (友聯產險), the nation's third-largest property insurer, will reduce its capital by 91.5 percent, or NT$5.37 billion (US$161 million), to improve its financial structure, a press statement said yesterday.
The property insurer, a subsidiary of the scandal-ridden Rebar Asia Pacific Group (力霸亞太企業集團), incurred losses of NT$6.6 billion as of the end of last year, company statistics showed.
A meeting of the firm's board directors yesterday also approved a proposal to issue a maximum of 350 million new shares at NT$10 each through a private placement.
The final price of new shares will be determined based on the company's actual operations and the board will be authorized to raise funds from specific parties within a year, the statement said.
The plans for the capital reduction and recapitalization will be submitted to a shareholders' meeting on June 29 for approval.
Shares of Union Insurance closed up NT$0.19 at NT$2.91 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday. The board's announcements came out after the stock market closed.
The board meeting yesterday also elected president Samuel Yu (喻志鵬) as
chairman, replacing Chu Li-ming (朱立明), who was only elected to chair the
company during a provisional shareholders' meeting on Monday.
Chu offered to step down, citing personal reasons, the statement said. Chu
was previously chairman of New York Life Insurance Taiwan Corp (國際紐約人
壽).
The board selected on Monday is an interim board to help the insurer propose
the recapitalization plan. A provisional shareholders' meeting held in the
second half of the year will re-elect board members and supervisors, the
insurer said in the statement.
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