E. Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行), the banking arm of E. Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控), yesterday announced plans to buy a 70 percent stake in Phnom Penh, Cambodia-based Union Commercial Bank PLC (UCB) for US$69.33 million to facilitate its expansion into Southeast Asia.
“We decided to buy a stake in UCB, rather than set up a branch in Cambodia after discovering that USB shares similar ideas about business development with E. Sun Bank,” E. Sun Financial president Joseph Huang (黃男州) told reporters at the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Created in 1994 in the Cambodian capital, UCB has five branches focused on savings, lending and credit card businesses, Huang said.
UCB had US$330 million in assets as of December last year, the eighth-largest bank in Cambodia with a market share of 3.2 percent, Huang said.
“E. Sun Bank intends to copy its business model in Taiwan at the Cambodian lender to help boost its financial proficiency and scale of economies,” he said.
The investment came as bank-oriented E. Sun Financial seeks to expand its service network in Asia, after establishing branches in Singapore and Dongguan, China, last year.
The conglomerate also plans forays into Vietnam, Myanmar and Australia to take advantage of the region’s rapid economic growth.
The deal still needs to be approved by the regulators in Taiwan and Cambodia, Huang said.
Earlier this month, E. Sun Financial said it is looking to increase its loan book and fee income by a double-digit percentage this year, driven mainly by a thriving credit card business and better ties with small and medium-sized enterprises.
The company posted NT$7.06 billion in net profits last year, more than double the level in 2011, as its focus on the mass market paid off, a company report said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
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
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last