Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽) yesterday said it had bought an office building in a Taipei science park, as the nation’s second-largest life insurer continues efforts to seek satisfactory investment returns for shareholders after incurring equity losses.
In a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange, Shin Kong Life, a subsidiary of Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控), said it purchased a 12-floor Primax Electronics Ltd (致伸科技) building with three basement levels in the Neihu Technology Park (內湖科技園區) for NT$2 billion (US$60.1 million).
The sum compares with appraisals made by DTZ Debenham Tie Leung (戴德梁行) of NT$2.24 billion and Honda Appraisers Joint Firm (宏大不動產) of NT$2.01 billion, the filing showed.
Shin Kong Life said it first purchased the building, with a floor space of 21,944.53m² (6,650 ping), and then leased it back to Primax Electronics for 15 years.
The company, however, did not specify in the filing how much yearly fixed rental income it expected to receive from its tenant. The Chinese-language United Evening News reported yesterday the deal would create a 4 percent rate of return to the company annually, citing an estimate made by Shin Kong Life’s real estate investment division.
Shares of Shin Kong Financial ended 5.14 percent lower at NT$8.68 yesterday before the investment was announced. The stock has dropped 61.1 percent so far this year, underperforming the benchmark index’s 47.3 percent decline over the same period, stock exchange tallies showed.
During the first 11 months of the year, Shin Kong Financial reported NT$16.1 billion in losses, or a NT$2.92 loss per share, making it the worst performer among the nation’s 14 financial holding services providers. The company had attributed its poor performance to declines in global stock markets and investment writedowns linked to Lehman Brothers.
Shin Kong Life’s latest real estate investment came after the company announced in October that it authorized its chairman, Eugene Wu (吳東進), and its management team to invest in quality real estate in Taiwan, especially in Taipei’s Neihu, Xinyi (信義) and Nangang (南港) districts, with a maximum investment of NT$20 billion.
Including the newly-purchased building, the life insurer currently has owned eight office buildings in the Neihu district, including two BenQ Corp (明基) buildings it acquired in July last year for NT$5.37 billion.
Overall, Shin Kong Life has invested more than NT$10 billion in the Neihu office building market, which is likely to generate a fixed rental income of NT$500 million annually, if these buildings are fully occupied by tenants, the online Cnyes.com news outlet reported yesterday, without siting its source.
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
A proposed 100 percent tariff on chip imports announced by US President Donald Trump could shift more of Taiwan’s semiconductor production overseas, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) researcher said yesterday. Trump’s tariff policy will accelerate the global semiconductor industry’s pace to establish roots in the US, leading to higher supply chain costs and ultimately raising prices of consumer electronics and creating uncertainty for future market demand, Arisa Liu (劉佩真) at the institute’s Taiwan Industry Economics Database said in a telephone interview. Trump’s move signals his intention to "restore the glory of the US semiconductor industry," Liu noted, saying that
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
STILL UNCLEAR: Several aspects of the policy still need to be clarified, such as whether the exemptions would expand to related products, PwC Taiwan warned The TAIEX surged yesterday, led by gains in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), after US President Donald Trump announced a sweeping 100 percent tariff on imported semiconductors — while exempting companies operating or building plants in the US, which includes TSMC. The benchmark index jumped 556.41 points, or 2.37 percent, to close at 24,003.77, breaching the 24,000-point level and hitting its highest close this year, Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) data showed. TSMC rose NT$55, or 4.89 percent, to close at a record NT$1,180, as the company is already investing heavily in a multibillion-dollar plant in Arizona that led investors to assume
RSS