Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) lost its standing as the nation’s most profitable financial services provider last month, after its banking subsidiary reported net losses due to provision costs, the company said in a stock filing yesterday.
The conglomerate posted a net income of NT$5.44 billion (US$181.58 million) last month, thanks to its insurance unit, Fubon Life Insurance Co (富邦人壽), which generated NT$5.95 billion and more than offset net losses of NT$1.68 billion recorded by Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank (台北富邦銀行), the filing showed.
Taipei Fubon Bank set aside NT$3.3 billion in provisions last month to meet the 1 percent minimum required of Tier 1 assets by the Financial Supervisory Commission, lifting its coverage ratio to 1,100 percent, the filing said.
The conglomerate accumulated NT$23.34 billion in net income for the first seven months of the year, with earnings per share (EPS) of NT$2.43, according to the filing.
Fubon Financial’s earnings last month lagged behind Cathay Financial Holding Co’s (國泰金控), which reported a profit of NT$6.68 billion.
The nation’s largest financial holding company by assets saw a sharp rise in net profit last month after its insurance arm, Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), recognized NT$6 billion in dividend income, with another NT$5 billion to be booked later this year, Cathay Financial said in a statement on Wednesday.
Cathay Life Insurance generated NT$5.71 billion profit last month, while Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) contributed another NT$1.3 billion, the statement showed.
The group’s cumulative earnings in the first seven months totaled NT$21.65 billion, with EPS of NT$2.3.
CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控), the nation’s third-largest financial services provider by assets, reported NT$1.69 billion in net income last month, mainly from sales of wealth management products and welfare lottery tickets, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.
The bank-focused conglomerate accumulated NT$14.99 billion in net profit for the first seven months, representing EPS of NT$1.14, up 17 percent increase from the same period last year, the statement said.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained