Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合作金庫銀行) authorized chairman Liu Teng-cheng (劉燈城) and president Lin Tien (林田) to conduct merger talks with other financial institutions, following its acquisition of smaller rival Farmers Bank of China (農民銀行) in 2006.
In a stock exchange filing on Friday, the nation’s second-largest lender by assets said it had made the decision following an ad hoc board meeting earlier that day.
“The bank has asked the board to give permission for the chairman and president to engage in merger talks with other financial institutions at an appropriate time and to carry out evaluations accordingly,” the filing said.
Taiwan Cooperative’s interest came after Bank of Taiwan (臺灣銀行) president Peter Lo (羅澤成) told lawmakers last week that the state-run bank was looking into the possibility of acquiring Chinfon Commercial Bank (慶豐銀行), with which Taiwan Cooperative has engaged in merger talks since 2001.
The Bank of Taiwan has been managing Chinfon Bank since late September after the debt-ridden lender was officially taken over by the Central Deposit Insurance Corp (CDIC, 中央存保) on Sept. 26.
Bank of Taiwan shifted its merger target to private lenders after the legislature passed a bill last month that rejected a proposal by the previous government to merge the bank with the Land Bank of Taiwan (士地銀行) and the Export-Import Bank of the Republic of China (中國輸出入銀行).
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure