Local insurer Mercuries Life Insurance Co (三商美邦人壽保險) is looking for opportunities to expand its presence in China and Southeast Asia this year, while seeking to boost premiums at home, senior executives said yesterday.
“We aim to grow our overall premiums to NT$115 billion [US$3.82 billion] this year,” chief financial officer Winston Yang (楊棋材) said at a celebration for the company’s 20th anniversary.
That figure would be 3.7 percent higher than the NT$110.89 billion in premiums the company recorded last year, despite market expectations of a slowdown linked to the effect of a high base of comparison.
Photo: CNA
However, the insurer’s goal may well be achievable after its gross premiums reached NT$61 billion in the first half of the year, while its first-year premiums stood at NT$23.8 billion, company data showed.
Like many of its peers, Mercuries Life took a hit in net value last quarter after bond prices dropped significantly after the US Federal Reserve signaled that it may begin winding down its quantitative easing (QE) program.
Yang forecast the company’s net worth to decline by about 10 percent at the end of last month from NT$24 billion on March 31, after US benchmark 10-year bond yields gained 100 basis points and their local counterparts increased by 30 basis points. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.
Mercuries Life invests 65 percent of its working capital of NT$569 billion in bond holdings and places an extra 25 percent in other assets to generate fixed income, Yang said.
The possible QE slowdown in the US is likely to have a greater impact on other insurers given their larger bond holdings, Yang said.
“Interest rate hikes should benefit life insurers in the long run, enabling their funds to generate better earnings despite present corrections,” Yang added.
Mercuries Life chief executive officer Roy Meng (孟嘉仁) said the company is looking for acquisition and partnership opportunities at home and abroad to increase the firm’s economic scale.
The firm is weighing the possibility of tapping Indonesian, Malaysian and other emerging markets to take advantage of their fast-growing per capita income, Meng said, adding that the company plans to file applications in the fourth quarter to set up a representative office in Beijing.
At home. the insurer is also considering becoming involved in public construction projects but advised the government to issue securities based on the projects to allow better liquidity, he said.
“A medium-sized insurer, Mercuries Life cannot afford to make long-term investments without the benefit of interest payments,” Meng said.
The company has an updated embedded value of NT$58.5 billion as of December last year, rising 19.5 percent from a year earlier with earnings per share of NT$50.5, according to company statistics.
Mercuries Life is due to release its first-half earnings results on Monday.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure