Shareholders of Waterland Financial Holding Co (國票金控), the nation’s smallest financial services provider, yesterday approved a board reshuffle, although opposing camps remained divided over the appointment of top executives.
The bills finance firm turned conglomerate, which has seen bitter boardroom disputes over major decisions in recent years, may regain some harmony because of the presence of a government stake following the election of a new board of directors.
Hotel chain operator Miramar Group (美麗華集團) and media firm Want Want Group (旺旺集團), which together hold a 35 percent stake in Waterland Financial, won six of the 11 seats on the board after the two formed an alliance earlier this year.
Detergent maker Nice Group (耐斯集團) and the Ministry of Finance won three and two seats respectively, roughly in line with their shareholdings.
“The company will elect a new chairman and president at the first board meeting, to be held within two weeks,” Waterland Financial spokesman Norman Tsai (蔡佳晉) said.
Former Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行) chairman Wea Chi-lin (魏啟林), who won a seat on the board with the backing of Want Want Group, is expected to take the helm, local Chinese-language media reported.
The Ministry of Finance and Nice Group will have the final say on the choice of president, the reports said.
Tsai declined to comment on the reports.
Minister of Finance Lee Sush-der (李述德) has reportedly said more discussion would be needed to settle the issue. The minister could not be reached to confirm the report as of press time.
Eight state-run banks have increased their holdings in Waterland Financial since late last year in the hope of injecting a healthy dose of stability to its boardroom via the re-election yesterday.
That effort culminated in Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行) and First Commercial Bank (第一銀行), the banking units of state-run Hua Nan Financial Holding Co (華南金控) and First Financial Holding Co (第一金控) respectively, winning a seat each on the board.
“The boardroom may not see such sharp divisions in the future with the government playing moderator,” Tsai said.
The Financial Supervisory Commission in October last year rejected Waterland Financial’s bid to acquire US company MetLife Inc’s local insurance unit on concerns over its financial capabilities and feuds in the boardroom.
Tsai said the new management team would chart the company’s future development strategy.
The shareholders’ meeting also approved a proposal to distribute a cash dividend of NT$0.4 per share and a stock dividend of 5.2 percent.
Waterland Financial expects to see stable earnings growth for the rest of this year after net profit totaled NT$1.66 billion (US$57.24 million) as of May, or NT$0.73 earnings per share, Tsai said.
Waterland Financial shares closed up 1.6 percent at NT$13 yesterday, outperforming the TAIEX’s 0.4 percent fall.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts