Deputy Minister of Finance Wu Tang-chieh (吳當傑), who is acting chairman of the state-owned Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行), yesterday said the lender would press ahead with plans to raise new funds through an initial public offering (IPO).
Wu took up the position yesterday from Shiu Kuang-si (徐光曦), who was appointed to the helm of state-run Hua Nan Financial Holding Co (華南金控) after former chairman Liu Teng-cheng (劉燈城) retired upon turning 65 years old.
Land Bank employees staged a demonstration before the swearing-in ceremony to protest the IPO plan, saying that they feared it might lead to the mortgage-focused lender’s privatization and dilute their benefits.
“We once thought of scrapping the IPO plan and making national enterprises subscribe to new shares to boost Land Bank’s capital strength,” Wu told reporters.
However, national enterprises shied from the investment proposal amid concerns about a lack of professional knowledge and experience in operating banks, he said.
Land Bank aims to raise NT$30 billion (US$914.6 million) in new capital to elevate its Tier 1 capital ratio from 6.84 percent to 8.5 percent, which would allow it to expand business at home and overseas.
CAPITAL
Tier 1 capital, which consists primarily of common stock and retained earnings, is the core measure of a bank’s financial health from a regulator’s point of view.
The lender plans to raise about NT$5 billion through the open market and put aside another 10 percent for subscriptions by employees, and auction off the remainder, Wu said.
Proposed as part of the government’s budget for next year, the IPO plan still needs approval from the legislature.
Capital inadequacy has disqualified Land Bank from filling overseas expansion plans with the Financial Supervisory Commission, Wu said.
The capital increase scheme is unlikely to affect existing employee compensations or benefits, as the Ministry of Finance is to continue to be the largest shareholder with an 80 percent stake, he said.
While being the nation’s largest lender in terms of real-estate-linked financing, the bank should seek to diversify its sources of income by growing fee and wealth management incomes, he added.
Minister of Finance Chang Sheng-ford (張盛和) said that Land Bank of Taiwan should improve its capital sufficiency and asset quality so it can lend substantial support to the government in coping with the nation’s rapidly aging population and industrial reform.
As deputy finance minister, Wu helped the government win a majority control in the boardroom of Chang Hwa Commercial Bank (彰化銀行) and gain a majority of shares in Taipei 101 Taipei Financial Center Corp (台北金融大樓公司), operator of the Taipei 101 skyscraper.
As of July, Land Bank reported NT$6.5 billion in net income, translating into earnings of NT$1.3 per share and more than meeting the budget target, company data showed. The profit figure might rise to NT$13 billion for the year, officials said.
Meanwhile, Shiu said Hua Nan Financial would strive to develop into a major regional player under his leadership and that the main subsidiary Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行) would grow its loan books by 3 percent this year, or 1.5 times of the nation’s projected GDP growth.
Shiu encouraged his employees to stay hungry for professional knowledge and product innovation, saying being good is not enough to meet growing competition locally or on the international stage.
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],”