Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽), the main subsidiary and biggest profit source of Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控), announced yesterday that it has acquired an office building in London for ￡136 million (US$206 million) as part of the company’s efforts to elevate its long-term fixed income return and asset quality by revitalizing its commercial real-estate portfolio.
The insurer said the purchase was completed on Friday last week, when it also sold off its A8 commercial building in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) to Fubon Life Insurance Co (富邦人壽) in a NT$27.034 billion (US$817.6 million) deal.
The building houses a branch of the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store (新光三越百貨) chain and its sale is expected to yield NT$7.8 billion in gains for the insurer, which has been beset by larger-than-expected losses this year.
The two transactions represent a seamless transition of the company’s capital as it disposed of matured commercial real-estate property that has met its designated investment goals and redirected the proceeds to another viable alternative, Shin Kong Life said in a statement.
Located in the City of London financial district, Shin Kong Life’s new building, 40 Gracechurch Street, is expected to yield NT$300 million in rental proceeds each year, generating more than 4 percent in investment returns in the company’s first overseas purchase, Shin Kong Financial chairman Eugene Wu (吳東進) said in the statement.
In addition, Shin Kong Financial said that its board also approved a plan to purchase real estate in Tokyo via a special purpose vehicle arrangement — where a legal entity such as a limited company is created to fulfill specific objectives without putting the parent company at risk.
Given Japan’s persistently low interest rates, which range between 0.8 and 1 percent, the low cost of financing is expected to boost real-estate investment returns in the country to more than 7 percent, compared with 4 percent in other major markets, pending the approval of Japanese regulators, Shin Kong Financial said.
By purchasing real estate in Japan, the company would improve its risk diversification, as well as its capital utilization, it said.
Taiwan’s long-term economic competitiveness will hinge not only on national champions like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) but also on the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies, a US-based scholar has said. At a lecture in Taipei on Tuesday, Jeffrey Ding, assistant professor of political science at the George Washington University and author of "Technology and the Rise of Great Powers," argued that historical experience shows that general-purpose technologies (GPTs) — such as electricity, computers and now AI — shape long-term economic advantages through their diffusion across the broader economy. "What really matters is not who pioneers
In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence (AI), smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned. Completed early this year and undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, according to two people with knowledge of the project. EUV machines sit at the heart of a technological Cold
TAIWAN VALUE CHAIN: Foxtron is to fully own Luxgen following the transaction and it plans to launch a new electric model, the Foxtron Bria, in Taiwan next year Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday said that its board of directors approved the disposal of its electric vehicle (EV) unit, Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車), to Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co (鴻華先進) for NT$787.6 million (US$24.98 million). Foxtron, a half-half joint venture between Yulon affiliate Hua-Chuang Automobile Information Technical Center Co (華創車電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), expects to wrap up the deal in the first quarter of next year. Foxtron would fully own Luxgen following the transaction, including five car distributing companies, outlets and all employees. The deal is subject to the approval of the Fair Trade Commission, Foxtron said. “Foxtron will be
INFLATION CONSIDERATION: The BOJ governor said that it would ‘keep making appropriate decisions’ and would adjust depending on the economy and prices The Bank of Japan (BOJ) yesterday raised its benchmark interest rate to the highest in 30 years and said more increases are in the pipeline if conditions allow, in a sign of growing conviction that it can attain the stable inflation target it has pursued for more than a decade. Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda’s policy board increased the rate by 0.2 percentage points to 0.75 percent, in a unanimous decision, the bank said in a statement. The central bank cited the rising likelihood of its economic outlook being realized. The rate change was expected by all 50 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The
RSS