CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) aims to raise the general assets of its insurance business to NT$1 trillion (US$31.09 billion) in 2017 — a figure that would represent 25 percent of the financial holding firm’s total assets, a company executive said on Saturday.
The general assets of CTBC Financial’s insurance business — mainly CTBC Life Insurance Co Ltd (中國信託人壽) — now total about NT$350 billion, or 6 percent of the company’s total assets, according to the conglomerate, which has businesses in several areas including banking, insurance, securities, venture capital, asset management and lotteries.
At the same time, the company hopes to lower the proportion of assets of its banking business to around 70 percent of the total from its current position of more than 90 percent, CTBC Financial president Daniel Wu (吳一揆) said.
“Following the strategy to raise the scale of CTBC Financial’s insurance business, the company will seek appropriate mergers and acquisitions,” Wu told reporters on the sideline of an orientation ceremony for newly recruited management associates.
CTBC Financial and its subsidiaries plan to hire up to 3,000 employees this year, including 50 management associates.
The company has been on track to develop into a financial group with strong regional competitiveness in recent years through mergers and acquisitions at home and abroad.
CTBC Financial acquired MetLife Taiwan Insurance Co (大都會國際人壽) in 2011 and Manulife Insurance Co (宏利人壽) in 2013. Last year, the company completed the 100 percent acquisition of Tokyo Star Bank.
The company was absent from a government-held auction for the ownerships of debt-ridden Global Life Insurance Co (國寶人壽) and Singfor Life Insurance Co (幸福人壽) last week. Instead, Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽) took over the two bankrupt life insurers, assisted by a government subsidy of NT$30.3 billion, according to a Financial Supervisory Commission statement.
The two insolvent companies hold a total of around NT$107.4 billion in general assets, commission data shows.
Asked why CTBC Financial did not participate in the bidding for Global Life and Singfor Life, Wu said the company was not a qualified bidder as then-CTBC Life chairman Scott Chien (簡松棋) had once been the chairman of Singfor Life.
There is another potential acquisition target on the horizon, however, as the company is mulling the acquisition of Taiwan Life Insurance Co (台灣人壽), Wu said earlier this month after a conference call with analysts.
The company has sufficient capital to make investments in the future, Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) said.
The company’s tier-one ratio reached 10.5 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, higher than the Basel III requirement of 8.5 percent. This shows that the company has sufficient capital to grow, Yuanta Investment researcher Peggy Shih (施姵帆) said.
In addition, CTBC Financial’s double leverage ratio was 105.3 percent in the past quarter, far below the regulatory ceiling of 125 percent and more evidence that it has sufficient capacity to make investments, Shih said.
The company posted net income of NT$6.06 billion, or NT$0.4 per share, in the first two months of the year, higher than the NT$5.36 billion it made in the same period last year. However, its shares have underperformed the main bourse by 2.6 percent since the beginning of the year, after dropping 0.97 percent to close at NT$20.45 on Friday last week.
JPMorgan Securities Ltd said the company’s shares might not react positively even after deciding to restart talks with Taiwan Life.
In Italy’s storied gold-making hubs, jewelers are reworking their designs to trim gold content as they race to blunt the effect of record prices and appeal to shoppers watching their budgets. Gold prices hit a record high on Thursday, surging near US$5,600 an ounce, more than double a year ago as geopolitical concerns and jitters over trade pushed investors toward the safe-haven asset. The rally is putting undue pressure on small artisans as they face mounting demands from customers, including international brands, to produce cheaper items, from signature pieces to wedding rings, according to interviews with four independent jewelers in Italy’s main
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has talked up the benefits of a weaker yen in a campaign speech, adopting a tone at odds with her finance ministry, which has refused to rule out any options to counter excessive foreign exchange volatility. Takaichi later softened her stance, saying she did not have a preference for the yen’s direction. “People say the weak yen is bad right now, but for export industries, it’s a major opportunity,” Takaichi said on Saturday at a rally for Liberal Democratic Party candidate Daishiro Yamagiwa in Kanagawa Prefecture ahead of a snap election on Sunday. “Whether it’s selling food or
CONCERNS: Tech companies investing in AI businesses that purchase their products have raised questions among investors that they are artificially propping up demand Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Saturday said that the company would be participating in OpenAI’s latest funding round, describing it as potentially “the largest investment we’ve ever made.” “We will invest a great deal of money,” Huang told reporters while visiting Taipei. “I believe in OpenAI. The work that they do is incredible. They’re one of the most consequential companies of our time.” Huang did not say exactly how much Nvidia might contribute, but described the investment as “huge.” “Let Sam announce how much he’s going to raise — it’s for him to decide,” Huang said, referring to OpenAI
The global server market is expected to grow 12.8 percent annually this year, with artificial intelligence (AI) servers projected to account for 16.5 percent, driven by continued investment in AI infrastructure by major cloud service providers (CSPs), market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. Global AI server shipments this year are expected to increase 28 percent year-on-year to more than 2.7 million units, driven by sustained demand from CSPs and government sovereign cloud projects, TrendForce analyst Frank Kung (龔明德) told the Taipei Times. Demand for GPU-based AI servers, including Nvidia Corp’s GB and Vera Rubin rack systems, is expected to remain high,
RSS