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Yuanta in alliance talks

Chinatrust Commercial Bank chairman Charles Lo, center, financial department chief Huang Tzu-kuo, left, and operations chief Lo Hung-yu hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Taipei yesterday to celebrate the opening of the bank's 142nd branch. PHOTO: CHANG CHIA-MING, TAIPEI TIMES

Yuanta Financial Holdings Co (元大金控), the nation's fifth-largest financial service provider by assets, yesterday said it is in talks with Japanese and Korean companies on forging international alliances in the brokerage business.

Yuanta was formerly known as Fuhwa Financial Holding Co (復華金控) before it was taken over by the nation's biggest brokerage, Yuanta Core Pacific Securities Co (元大京華證券), in April.

The merger has helped Yuanta build a strong foothold in the nation's banking and brokerage markets.

"Yuanta will aggressively expand its overseas network in the future," company chairman Yen Ching-chang (顏慶章) said yesterday.

Yuanta now operates brokerages in Singapore and Thailand through its affiliate Kim Eng Holdings Ltd (金英控股), in which Yuanta's brokerage subsidiary Yuanta Securities holds a 28.6 percent stake.

"We have been doing well in Southeast Asia and we hope to extend our network to Northeast Asia together with Kim Eng," Yuanta president Victor Ma (馬維建) told reporters yesterday.

Ma said Yuanta was in talks with companies from Japan and South Korea on forming strategic partnerships, through cross holdings or other financial arrangements, with the aim of creating one of the top brokerages in the Asia-Pacific region.

"Through the strategic partnerships, Yuanta would get easier access to those markets, as it does through Kim Eng," Ma said.

Ma said he was attempting to persuade Yuanta's major shareholders, such as Central Investment Holding Co (中央投資), to sell their holdings to make way for future partners.

Further financial details would be discussed later and no decision had been made yet, he said.

If the alliance talks were successful, Yuanta would gain more than 100 outlets in both South Korea and Japan, he said.

Through Kim Eng, Yuanta manages around US$500 million in shares and bonds for overseas customers, far higher than US$300 million the company managed before the partnership, he said.

Ma also said the company is seeking merger and acquisition targets to expand its banking business in Taiwan.

He declined to comment on whether his company had approached The Chinese Bank (中華銀行) about a possible merger.

Yuanta now has 70 banking outlets, but said it aims to expand the number to 100.

Separately, Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控) yesterday said it had completed the takeover of the smaller Enterprise Bank of Hualien (花蓮企銀).

Chinatrust will have 142 outlets around the nation, up from 111, in the wake of the merger, the company said.

"We hope to take a bigger share of the wealth management market by absorbing Enterprise Bank of Hualien," said Charles Lo (羅聯福), chairman of Chinatrust's banking subsidiary Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中國信託商銀).

Speaking of the timetable for disposing of Chinatrust Financial's 11.6 percent stake in the nation's No. 3 financial service provider, Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控), Lo said the company would try to get more leeway from the nation's financial watchdog to sell the shares.

The Financial Supervisory Commission asked Chinatrust Financial to sell all of its Mega Financial stake within one year instead of the four-year span Chinatrust had requested.

Lo said the company's board would meet this week to discuss this issue.
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