Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), the nation’s second-largest financial services provider by assets, yesterday approved plans to seek external help to review internal oversight and operations, in a bid to burnish its corporate image in the wake of last month’s sports lottery scandal.
The 50-year-old conglomerate approved plans to hire a foreign management consultancy to investigate 10 major subsidiaries after an employee at Taiwan Sport Lottery Corp (運彩科技) was found guilty of operational irregularities and dismissed, although the parent firm declined to press charges following an internal probe.
The scandal led to a public outcry last month, forcing the lottery issuer to suspend sales of the troubled lottery tickets and reshuffle top executives.
Shares in Fubon Financial have tumbled 19.3 percent since the scandal first broke on Sept. 17, against a drop of 5.88 percent of the TAIEX over the same period, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
Fubon Financial shares rose 1.18 percent yesterday, lagging behind the main index’s 2.04 percent increase, exchange data indicated.
“We regret the mistake and will make amends after a thorough examination,” Fubon Financial chairman Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) told an extraordinary shareholders’ conference. “It is time for the group to undertake a check-up 50 years after it was established, to ensure its continued health.”
Taiwan Sport Lottery doubled prize money for winning ticket holders whose prizes were cut by employee Lin Hao-chin’s (林昊縉) unfair manipulation of the computer betting system he supervised in July and August.
The lottery issuer has submitted plans to authorities to strengthen internal risk controls after carrying out a review, the parent company said in a statement.
The Sports Affairs Council fined the lottery issuer NT$150,000 (US$4,900) last month. The Financial Supervisory Commission has said it could fine Fubon Financial for oversight negligence, if necessary.
Fubon Financial posted NT$15.16 billion in net profits for the first half of the year, translating into earnings of NT$1.77 per share, making the group the most profitable company among its 14 domestic peers.
The lottery scam cost Fubon Financial its top ranking in corporate social responsibility among financial service providers in an annual survey released by the Chinese-language CommonWealth magazine earlier this week.
To address the impact of the scandal on its corporate image, the group called a special shareholders’ meeting to elect two independent directors and demonstrate its commitment to enhanced internal control.
The two directors are Broadcasting Corporation of China (中廣公司) chairman Jaw Shau-kong (趙少康) and former First Financial Holding Co (第一金控) president Chao Yuan-chi (趙元旗).
In related news, the Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday approved Chinatrust Financial Holding Co’s (中信金控) acquisition of US life insurance giant MetLife Inc’s local unit.
Chinatrust Financial, the nation’s third-largest financial services provider by assets, should complete the stock purchase agreement within three months and then infuse new capital as pledged, to show its long-term commitment to the insurer, the regulator said in a statement.
Chinatrust Financial said it would comply with the requirements after receiving official approval.
In addition, the commission suspended Farglory Life Insurance Co (遠雄人壽) from land financing for six months as a punishment for loose lending in 2009.
The regulator further asked the life insurer to recompile its financial statement and cap loans to real estate properties at 70 percent of their assessed value.
Farglory Life also has one month to punish the employees who approved the loans at issue, the commission said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the