SinoPac Securities Co (永豐金證券) on Friday said it is to acquire two brokerages in a bid to bolster its wealth management business in Taiwan and expand the operational scale of SinoPac Securities (Asia) Ltd (永豐金證券亞洲), its Hong Kong-based subsidiary.
SinoPac Securities plans to acquire BEA Wealth Management Services Taiwan Ltd (東亞證券) for NT$375 million (US$11.53 million) and Tung Shing Holdings Co (東盛控股) for HK$540 million (US$69.68 million), the securities arm of SinoPac Financial Holdings Co (永豐金控) announced at a news conference in Taipei.
BEA Wealth Management is a Taiwan-based subsidiary of Hong Kong’s Bank of East Asia Ltd (BEA, 東亞銀行) specializing in re-consigned trading and has two service locations.
Tung Shing Holdings is also a subsidiary of BEA, which specializes in agency brokerage and margin financing, according to SinoPac Securities.
SinoPac Securities expects the purchase of BEA Wealth Management to boost its reconsigned trading business through larger operating scale with better efficiency, while pushing the company’s ranking among domestic peers to third place from fourth, the company said.
Bringing Tung Shing Holdings under its fold is expected to help SinoPac Securities better serve Hong Kong customers, the Taiwanese brokerage said, adding that its Hong Kong-based subsidiary would rise to be the second-largest agency broker among Taiwanese peers in Hong Kong.
“We hope to answer the Financial Supervisory Commission’s call to tap into the vast Asian markets with these two acquisitions,” SinoPac Securities chairman Chen Wei-long (陳惟龍) said. “Continuous innovation and expansions in economies of scale are key to improving competitiveness, and acquisition is the fastest method to achieve the latter.”
The two deals are expected to be completed before the end of March next year, pending regulatory approval, the company said.
“We are seeking other markets amid an unfavorable investment environment and limited upside potential on the local bourse, despite a recent recovery in average daily turnover,” said Mei Lan (藍玫君), senior executive vice president of SinoPac Securities wealth management and offshore securities business group.
She said the two companies involved in the acquisition plan do not service retail investors who trade Taiwan stocks, as they focus on wealth management and investments in international financial products.
SinoPac Securities is expected to purchase BEA Wealth Management with cash, and the company is seeking a syndicated loan to fund its acquisition of Tung Shing Holdings, company president Yeh Huang-chi (葉黃杞) said.
The deals are the first time a Taiwanese brokerage has acquired its Hong Kong-based peers.
Meanwhile, Hontai Life Insurance Co (宏泰人壽) on Friday announced that it had devised a NT$8.13 billion capital increase plan, which is expected to receive approval at an extraordinary general meeting scheduled to take place next month.
The company said the proposed capital enhancement is aimed at preventing being put under government receivership by the Financial Supervisory Commission.
The commission had warned that the insurer’s risk-based capital (RBC) ratio was inadequate.
Hontai Life’s capital increase plan consists of NT$6.98 billion in real estate assets, and NT$1.15 in funds raised through a public offering of new shares at NT$5.76 per share.
Hontai president and chief executive officer Tom Tang (湯維華) expects the capital plan to push the company’s RBC to a more favorable level of more than 250 percent.
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
Micron Technology Inc is a driving force pushing the US Congress to pass legislation that would put new export restrictions on equipment its Chinese competitors use to make their chips, according to people familiar with the matter. A US House of Representatives panel yesterday was to vote on the “MATCH Act,” a bill designed to close gaps in restrictions on chipmaking equipment. It would also pressure foreign companies that sell equipment to Chinese chipmaking facilities to align with export curbs on US companies like Lam Research Corp and Applied Materials Inc. The bill targets facilities operated by China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings’ planned acquisition of Foodpanda’s Taiwan operations has yet to enter the formal review stage, as regulators await supplementary documents, the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said yesterday. Acting FTC Chairman Chen Chih-min (陳志民) told the legislature’s Economics Committee that although Grab submitted its application on March 27, the case has not been officially accepted because required materials remain incomplete. Once the filing is finalized, the FTC would launch a formal probe into the deal, focusing on issues such as cross-shareholding and potential restrictions on market competition, Chen told lawmakers. Grab last month announced that it would acquire
RSS