Taiwan Asset Management Co (TAMC, 台灣金聯資產管理), the nation’s largest bad-loan operator, expects revenue to stay flat this year from last year as the number of bad loans decline, limiting growth, top officials said yesterday.
“The company’s financial performance is likely to flatten this year amid the shrinking pool of bad loans,” acting chairman S.M. Lin (林盛茂) told a news conference.
Revenue was NT$2 billion (US$66.53 million) last year, with rental income accounting for 20 percent, or NT$400 million, Lin said.
That explains why the firm is to sell only 60 residential and commercial properties as well as plots of land this year compared with a larger batch of 100 in the previous six years, Lin said.
The annual sales campaign, which starts today and is to last through May 22, offers 44 residential properties, 10 commercial offices, five storefronts and one plot of land priced from NT$500,000, TAMC executive vice president Kuo Wen-jin (郭文進) said.
The firm declined to comment on the size of discounts due to the lack of a reliable benchmark these days, Kuo said, adding that some sellers have made drastic concessions to facilitate deals, while others show little flexibility.
Studio apartments of 19.3 ping and 20.55 ping (63.8m2 and 67.9m2), including parking spaces, on Taipei’s Linsen N Road have asking prices of NT$6.26 million, or NT$324,352 per ping, and NT$6.66 million, Lin said.
“Such rates are rare, if not utterly impossible, for apartments in Taipei,” Lin said.
TAMC has suspended plans to turn a mixed-use building into a hotel in downtown Taichung as the hospitality industry grows increasingly competitive in central Taiwan amid declining numbers of Chinese tourists, Lin said.
“We need more time to re-evaluate what is best for the asset, which has 17,000 ping of floor space,” senior vice president Tim Liu (劉育紘) said.
The company would prefer a tenant that is a banquet operator, as that business generates higher profit margins and promises long-term regular rental income, Liu said.
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