Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控), the parent company of the nation’s biggest issuer of credit cards, said it aims to use a proposed stake sale to attract investors who may help it expand overseas.
The company may sell as much as a 20 percent stake in new shares, Daniel Wu (吳一揆), Chinatrust president, told reporters in Taipei yesterday.
The company would also be interested in acquiring American International Group (AIG) Inc’s Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽) life-insurance unit if approached by the parent company, Wu said.
Chinatrust plans to expand beyond Taiwan, where 37 local banks and foreign lenders with about 100 branches serve a population of 23 million people. The board of its banking unit has approved plans to set up a Shanghai outlet.
The company, the nation’s fourth-largest publicly traded financial company by market value, may also target partners who can help boost its presence in the insurance industry, Wu told reporters.
Chinatrust Financial said on June 30 that its shareholders approved a plan to sell up to 2.5 billion shares in a private placement, a rights offer or a combination of the two. Details, including the timing, have yet to be decided, Wu said.
Shares of Chinatrust fell 1.3 percent to close at NT$19.35 in Taipei trading. The benchmark TAIEX declined 0.5 percent.
The company is seeking to renew its bid to purchase Nan Shan, Wu said in an e-mailed statement earlier this month.
Primus Financial Holdings Ltd and China Strategic Holdings Ltd (中策集團), both based in Hong Kong, are awaiting approval for their proposed purchase of Nan Shan Life for US$2.15 billion. Regulators and legislators are concerned that the buyers are backed by funding from China.
AIG, which is selling assets to repay a US$182.3 billion US rescue, reached an agreement with the group of buyers last month to extend the deadline for the sale to Oct. 12 from July 12.
Chinatrust had planned to partner with the buyers.
The company said in November last year that it would pay US$600 million to China Strategic for a 30 percent stake in Nan Shan. China Strategic would buy 1.17 billion Chinatrust shares, or a 9.95 percent stake, for about NT$20.8 billion (US$648 million) as part of the deal, Chinatrust said at the time.
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