Shares edge back up
Taiwanese shares closed up 0.88 percent yesterday, recovering from earlier losses thanks to a rally in financial stocks, dealers said.
The TAIEX rose 67.02 points to 7,649.23 on turnover of NT$115.09 billion (US$3.6 billion). Gainers led losers 1,439 to 1,135 with 283 stocks unchanged.
Financials rose 2.40 percent on reports that China hoped to finalize a currency settlement agreement with Taiwan soon, citing People’s Bank of China Deputy Governor Hu Xiaolian (胡曉煉).
“As foreign investors are starting to take vacations, we expect to see more gains in small to medium-sized stocks as local fund managers seek to push up prices before they close the book for the year,” said Kerry Chen of Yuanta Securities (元大證券).
Some Rebar properties sold
Taipei District Court yesterday sold off four of 15 Taipei-based properties previously owned by bankrupt Rebar Asia Pacific Group (力霸亞太企業集團) for a total of NT$115.5 million, or a 33 percent premium on their combined asking prices of NT$86.7 million, realtor Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) said in a statement.
The auction of Rebar’s Taipei headquarters and the fifth and sixth floors of its retail subsidiary Idee Department Store (衣蝶百貨), however, failed to attract any bidders, the realtor said.
The Idee property had a floor price of NT$757 million, or NT$1.19 million per ping, while the price for the headquarters property had been set at NT$504 million, or NT$647,000 per ping.
Bad-loan ratio drops
The nation’s 38 credit card issuers reported a bad-loan ratio of 1.06 percent in October, down by 0.03 percentage points month-on-month, Financial Supervisory Commission statistics showed yesterday.
The total revolving credit balance recorded among 18.7 million valid cardholders by these issuers reached NT$213.7 billion as of the end of October, NT$1.4 billion of which turned sour, the commission said.
Chinfon Commercial Bank (慶豐銀行) continued to post the highest bad-loan ratio of 6.02 percent, while the remaining 37 issuers maintained a ratio below 3 percent.
Meanwhile, the nation’s 18 cash card issuers reported a bad-loan ratio of 2.532 percent in October, down by 0.096 percentage point month-on-month, the data showed.
Outstanding loans among 920,000 cardholders reached NT$68.4 billion at the end of October, of which NT$530 million went non-performing, the commission said.
Chinfon and Union Bank of Taiwan (聯邦銀行) reported the highest bad-loan ratio at 32 percent and 20.7 percent respectively, although both banks had ceased to issue new cards.
Taiwan Cement signs MOU
Taiwan Cement Corp (台泥) said yesterday it had forged an agreement with Hong Kong-listed Prosperity Minerals Holdings Ltd (昌興礦業控股) to acquire its cement production facilities in China for US$515 million.
Taiwan Cement said that through its TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團), it signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Prosperity Minerals to buy its Upper Value Investment unit.
It said the deal was worth HK$4 billion, without providing details.
Prosperity Minerals’ cement manufacturing unit in China has a capacity of 16 million tonnes.
NT dollar dips
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, declining NT$0.014 to close at NT$32.199. Turnover was US$743 million.
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