China Development Financial Holding Corp (中華開發金控) yesterday carried out its deal to acquire Cosmos Bank (萬泰銀行), allowing the conglomerate to formally expand into commercial banking.
The conglomerate agreed in February to buy Cosmos for NT$23.09 billion (US$759.39 million) with cash and a share-swap scheme.
Cosmos Bank ceased to exist after becoming a 100 percent subsidiary of China Development Financial and will be renamed KGI Bank (凱基銀行) early next year.
The lender yesterday elected new directors and independent directors to its board and tapped KGI Securities Co (凱基證券) chairman Mark Wei (魏寶生) as its new chairman, its stock filings said.
Wei’s vacancy will be filled by KGI vice chairman Hsu Daw-yi (許道義), the filings said.
KGI Securities and China Development Industrial Bank (中華開發工銀) are both main subsidiaries of China Development Financial.
For years, China Development Bank had been seeking to expand into a commercial banking to grow its business and its number of retail customers.
Under the acquisition agreement, a shareholder in Cosmos bank is to receive 0.2 shares in China Development Financial, as well as NT$13.4 in cash per share, the filings said.
China Development Financial is to hold an investors’ conference next week and shed more light on its development plans.
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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