AIG General Insurance (Taiwan) Co (AIGGI Taiwan, 友邦產險), the local unit of embattled US insurer American International Group Inc (AIG), said yesterday that it would not put local assets up for sale, nor exit the local market.
The comments came in the wake of concern over the parent company’s financial state. The US firm reported later yesterday that it lost US$61.7 billion in the fourth quarter, the biggest quarterly loss in US corporate history.
“AIGGI Taiwan is not for sale because we are part of AIU [American International Underwriters]. And AIU, as far as we know, is not for sale,” the non-life insurer’s chairman Rudi Spaan told a media briefing in Taipei.
AIU manages AIG’s overseas property casualty operations.
“AIU is very committed to the Taiwanese insurance market. It is a market of great importance. There are a lot of great companies here, we have a lot of products that we think these great companies need,” Spaan said.
Despite the parent company’s financial problems, Spaan promised that all AIGGI Taiwan policy holders’ benefits would remain unaffected.
Although there is a financial relationship between AIGGI and AIG, Spaan said the company cannot repatriate assets of local policyholders back to the parent company.
“The regulators in Taiwan and countries worldwide all made it very clear that the money from [local] insurance companies cannot go into AIG unless regulatory approval is given,” Spaan said.
Spaan said that AIGGI Taiwan is separately capitalized and well-regulated locally.
Since last September, Spaan said more than 90 percent of AIGGI Taiwan’s customers have remained loyal and the company’s renewal ratio this year has not been any different to last year.
AIGGI Taiwan has 700,000 individual policyholders and business policyholders of between 26,000 and 27,000. The company’s premiums last year brought in about NT$6.9 billion (US$196 million).
The insurer said its risk-based capital ratio exceeds the statutory requirement of between 200 percent and 300 percent.
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
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
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