CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) yesterday fended off a proxy fight, with candidates aligned with the company’s management team securing seats on the board of directors following an election held at an extraordinary general meeting.
The outcome was in line with expectations, company chairman Yen Wen-long (顏文隆) said.
In August, Ruentex Group (潤泰集團) chairman Samuel Yin (尹衍樑) had been reportedly teaming up with other business tycoons in gathering CTBC Financial shares to wrest management control from the firm’s founding Koo (辜) family.
At that time, Chien Chi Asset Management (鑒機資產管理), a Ruentex Group-owned company headed by former Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控) chairman Mckinney Tsai (蔡友才), had gradually built up a 3 percent stake in CTBC Financial in a bid to gain seats on the firm’s board.
CTBC Financial appeared vulnerable to proxy fights as its management’s stakeholding was lower than its peers, prompting the company in October to move board elections from June next year to yesterday, while reducing the number of board seats from nine to seven, increasing the share threshold required to appoint each seat.
The company has also set a precedent, giving a majority four-seat representation to independent directors, compared with three seats for regular board members.
The change came after the company became embroiled in a series of regulatory troubles, including suspicious financial dealings from 2003 to 2007 that this year resulted in the indictment of former vice chairman Jeffrey Koo Jr (辜仲諒) , as well as the company’s involvement in a botched NT$4.86 billion (US$153 million) tender offer for XPEC Entertainment Inc (樂陞科技) that compelled CTBC Financial to provide NT$500 million compensation for affected investors.
Shareholders at the meeting railed against the company’s decision to provide compensation to quell pubic outrage when it had firmly denied all wrongdoing in the deal.
CTBC Financial president Daniel Wu (吳一揆) said that although the company has resolved the dispute with 97 percent of affected shareholders in the case, the remainder could continue to pursue legal action.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
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
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last