PAPER
Chair forged seals: TPPC
Taiwan Pulp and Paper Corp (TPPC, 台灣紙業) chairman Chien Hung-wen (簡鴻文) has been accused of forging company seals, according to TPPC’s filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Friday. The filing said Chien submitted an application to the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Department of Commerce to replace original company seals with new ones, believed to be fake. TPPC said it is seeking an administrative remedy for the accusation to ensure shareholders’ interests. Chien denied the allegation, saying that he had to file an application for new company seals as TPPC officials refused to provide him with original ones. He said the process of seal changes was completely legal.
CREDIT
Fraud reports hit new high
Credit card fraud reported in Taiwan hit a record-high last year, according to statistics released by the National Credit Card Center yesterday. Last year, credit card fraud totaled NT$1.3 billion (US$42.24 million) in Taiwan, more than triple the NT$328 million recorded in 2013, the center said. Eighty-nine percent of that — NT$1.16 billion — involved online transactions, a sharp increase from NT$268 million in 2013, the center said. The center also discovered that 95 percent of the fraudulent online transactions occurred overseas, which it attributed to the popularity of shopping on overseas Web sites.
ITALY
Chinese bank to pay fine
Italian media outlets reported that the Bank of China (中國銀行) has agreed to pay a fine of 600,000 euros (US$636,870), as part of a plea deal in a 4.5 billion euro money laundering probe. ANSA reported that at a preliminary hearing on Friday four bank officials were convicted of money laundering, while a charge of employing Mafia methods was dropped. The judge sentenced the bank officials to a two-year suspended sentence and ordered the seizure of 980,000 euros, equal to what prosecutors said were the bank’s profits in the scheme.
BANKING
Citigroup cuts CEO’s pay
Citigroup Inc’s board of directors is paying chief executive officer Michael Corbat US$15.5 million for last year, down from the US$16.5 million pay packet he received in 2015. The board on Friday said that in addition to his US$1.5 million base salary, Corbat is to receive US$4.2 million in cash and US$9.8 million in stock awards. The board said the package reflects Corbat’s work to shrink and restructure Citi following the financial crisis. Citigroup almost entirely wound down Citi Holdings last year, which is the “bad bank” part of Citigroup where the company housed all of the toxic assets.
FINANCE
Fannie Mae profits double
Fannie Mae on Friday said that it would pay the US Department of the Treasury a US$5.5 billion dividend next month after its profit doubled in its latest quarter. The government-controlled mortgage company has already paid the treasury US$154.4 billion in dividends since receiving US$116.1 billion in government bailouts between 2008 and 2011. Fannie Mae’s sibling Freddie Mac, which was also rescued by the government during the recession, on Thursday said that it would pay the treasury a US$4.5 billion dividend next month after its profits soared.
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six