Shares of financial and insurance companies rose yesterday, fueled by reports of mergers and acquisitions (M&A), although the companies mentioned in the reports dismissed such talk as media speculation.
Ta Chong Bank Ltd (大眾銀行), a Taiwanese lender controlled by Carlyle Group LP, advanced 2.13 percent to close at NT$12 ahead of a board meeting on Thursday.
The meeting is expected to approve plans by the US private equity firms to sell its 36 percent stake in the Greater Kaohsiung-based lender, although Ta Chong said the issue is not on the agenda.
The Carlyle Group, which teamed up with Cayman Islands-based Gable Partners II LP to pay NT$17 per share for Ta Chong in July 2007, is looking to divest the five-year investment in line with standard practice.
Ta Chong’s shares have jumped 69.97 percent this year amid reports Yuanta Financial Holding Co (元大金控) offered to buy the bank for US$1.25 billion through a share-swap deal.
The deal would give Ta Chong a 20 percent stake in Yuanta Financial at a price of between NT$15 and NT$17 per share, foreign and local media said, adding that the deal would secure Carlyle Group a 7 percent stake in Yuanta -Financial and a board seat.
Yuanta Financial chairman Yen Ching-chang (顏慶章) said earlier this month that the group was interested in expanding its banking unit after merging Polaris Securities Co (寶來證券).
“Yuanta Financial would like to increase its number of bank branches and expand into the life insurance business, but there is no timetable for that expansion,” Yen said on May 11.
The ideal number of branches for Yuanta Bank (元大銀行) would be about 100, from its current 88, Yen said.
Ta Chong topped the buy list of local shares among foreign investors last week, with net positions increasing by 24.72 million shares, followed by Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大) by 18.28 million shares and China Life Insurance Co (中國人壽) by 10.76 million shares, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed yesterday.
Meanwhile, Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控) saw its shares gain 1.83 percent to close at NT$11.15 yesterday amid reports the company is about to conclude a deal to buy the local unit of New York Life Insurance Co.
Taishin Financial said yesterday it had not ruled out the possibility of buying a life insurance unit and would make a public announcement when the time was right. The firm is reportedly in the process of negotiating with New York Life Taiwan over the latter’s value, which had NT$77.41 billion (US$2.63 billion) in assets as of the end of last year and a net worth of NT$3.99 billion, company data showed.
Canadian firm Manulife Financial Corp is reportedly in talks to sell its local unit, Manulife Insurance Co (宏利人壽), with the operational environment increasingly difficult for foreign players.
Following the financial crisis of 2008, foreign life insurers are required to adhere to stricter international capital requirements, but allowed less flexibility in allocating their assets than local companies, Allianz Taiwan Life Insurance Co bancassurance vice president Bright Chang (張敏亮) said last week.
Chang refused to comment on HSBC’s plans to sell its life insurance business in Taiwan to Allianz.
“Acquisitions normally stem from a need to expand sales channels, market share and asset size,” Chang said.
Allianz Taiwan would not benefit in the first two areas by acquiring HSBC’s insurance business, he added.
Allianz Taiwan posted NT$10.91 billion in total premiums for the first quarter of the year, down 33 percent from the same period last year and 6 percent from the previous quarter, company data showed.
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
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],”
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
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day