State-run Taiwan Cooperative Financial Holding Co (合庫金控) yesterday said it has reached a deal with BNP Paribas Investment Partners to buy back the shares it does not own in a joint asset management venture.
The plan, which still needs to be approved by the Financial Supervisory Commission, would allow Taiwan Cooperative Financial full control of the BNP Paribas TCB Asset Management Co (合庫巴黎證券投資信託). The asset management firm has been a drag on the bank-focused conglomerate’s profitability since its creation in June 2011.
“The two sides decided to separate due to business strategy differences,” Taiwan Cooperative Financial chairman Leon Shen (沈臨龍) told reporters.
Taiwan Cooperative holds 51 percent of the shares, while the French company owns the rest.
BNP Paribas TCB Asset Management incurred losses of NT$9.3 million (US$30,737) last year, up from losses of NT$8.8 million in 2012.
The parting of ways will not affect another joint venture, BNP Paribas Assurance TCB Life Insurance Co (合作金庫人壽), Shen said.
The insurance company made NT$239 million in profits for the first time last year, he said.
Taiwan Cooperative Financial president Yu Chin-tang (尤錦堂) said the asset management arm will be renamed after the share transfer is completed, which will likely be in the first half of this year.
The exit of French executives from the unit will help lower personnel costs, Yu said. He refused to comment on the exact costs involved, but sources with knowledge of the matter said it took more than NT$100 million.
The asset management firm has a net worth of NT$387 million.
“We expect the unit to turn a profit starting in 2016, after management reshuffles and ties are strengthened with Taiwan Cooperative Financial and its subsidiaries,” Yu said.
Taiwan Cooperative Financial, the fourth-largest financial group in the nation by assets, faces tough pressure to turn a profit this year after posting NT$8.4 billion in net profit last year, Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合庫銀行) president Lin Hong-chen (林鴻琛) said.
He attributed the challenges to provision costs sized at NT$5 billion to meet the tighter statutory requirement by the end of the year.
Taiwan Cooperative Bank plans to fund the costs by selling real estate properties and adjusting its loan structure to raise interest spread to 1.37 percent this year, up 10 basis points from 1.27 percent last month, Lin said.
The bank, the nation’s second-largest mortgage operator, intends to keep home loans flat this year from last year at NT$480 billion, in line with government policies aimed at cooling the housing market, Lin said.
The bank may emerge unharmed from the plunge in housing prices of up to 45 percent given its average loan to value ratios stands at 56 percent, Lin said.
Shares in Taiwan Cooperative Financial ended flat at NT$16.35 in Taipei trading yesterday, weaker than the TAIEX’s 0.45 percent gain, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
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
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six