Mercuries Life Insurance Co’s (三商美邦人壽) embedded value (EV) of NT$72.92 billion (US$2.43 billion) last year on the back of first-year premium increases suggests an increase of 24.6 percent from a year earlier, senior executives said yesterday.
The updated figures translated into an industry-leading EV per share of NT$59.4 — based on the number of common shares in circulation — which is up 17.6 percent from the previous value assessment a year earlier, chief financial officer Winston Yang (楊棋材) said.
EV represents the value of an insurance company’s future profits plus its adjusted net asset value.
Since insurance policies are long-term contracts in which policyholders pay a premium to be covered against a possible future event, such as death, EV numbers are an important indicator of a life insurer’s future profitability and financial standing.
The results place Mercuries ahead of China Life Insurance Co (中壽), whose EV stands at NT$43 per share and Taiwan Life Insurance Co (台壽保) at NT$45 per share, according to company data.
The three insurers do not belong to a financial conglomerate and reportedly have no intention of joining one — now that Taiwan Life has scrapped an agreement to merge with CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金).
Mercuries has about NT$4.5 billion in unrealized property gains, with NT$2.1 billion being qualified for net worth enhancement under new accounting rules, Yang said.
However, Mercuries does not want to book the gains to inflate its earnings, but instead will seek to strengthen its financial performance through business growth, chief executive officer Roy Meng (孟嘉仁) said.
The chief executive dismissed speculation from media outlets that Mercuries intends to develop into a financial holding company by acquiring nearly 10 percent of shares in Greater Tainan-based Kings Town Bank (KTB, 京城銀行).
The share purchase is a capital investment, and existing rules block the possibility of mergers and acquisitions, Meng said.
The Financial Supervisory Commission has barred life insurers from seeking board seats in companies in which it has capital investments or the ability to interfere in company operations, Meng added.
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
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],”