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Cathay Financial tops rankings by asset value

Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) topped the nation’s 100 biggest conglomerates by asset value last year, while Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) reported the largest annual revenues and Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團) led in after-tax profits, a local credit agency’s annual rankings showed yesterday.

The rankings, released by China Credit Information Service Ltd (中華徵信所), showed that Cathay Financial retained its No. 1 spot with NT$3.72 trillion (US$114.7 billion) in assets last year, followed by Formosa Plastic’s NT$2.46 trillion and Taiwan Cooperative Bank’s (合作金庫銀行) NT$2.43 trillion.

Hon Hai, the nation’s biggest maker of electronics components, recorded the highest income of NT$2 trillion, dethroning Formosa Plastics, which became the nation’s second-largest conglomerate by assets and had the highest net income of NT$219 billion and the second-highest revenues of NT$1.97 trillion.

In terms of revenue growth, AmTRAN Technology Co (瑞軒科技), a Taipei-based assembler of LCD televisions, whose assets value ranked 99th last year, saw the biggest jump in revenues with 126.4 percent growth, followed by Polaris Securities Group’s (寶來證券集團) 58 percent.

Altogether, the top 100 conglomerates had an all-time high of NT$41.8 trillion in combined assets, almost eight times the government’s revenues, along with a record-high NT$17.7 trillion in revenues and NT$1.25 billion in net profits.

“With record-high profits, it looks like Taiwan will be the only country in the world that is able to withstand a global economic slowdown and get back on its feet,” David Chang (張大為), president of China Credit Information Service, told a media briefing yesterday.

Unfortunately, since the fallout from the US subprime crisis late last year, the top 100 conglomerates suffered an average 21.56 percent decline in profits in the first half of this year, the report said.

Liu Jen (劉任), editor-in-chief of the credit agency’s business information service, said that he suspected that losses would widen in the second half since some of the nation’s financial service providers had begun reporting losses in the third quarter.

The agency estimated that the local economy would hit bottom by the end of next year, he said.

The financial crisis’ negative impact on the nation’s businesses is, in particular, most keenly felt among financial institutions, which may lead to a reshuffle in next year’s assets rankings, but there was no sign of any systematic risk as yet, he said.

The agency also listed its top 10 “defensive” picks, led by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) and United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), which it believed would have no problem weathering the financial crisis, given their liquidity, net worth and profitability.
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