Taiwan’s 15 listed financial conglomerates last month saw their combined earnings rise from December last year amid reduced market volatility, with six of the companies out of the red.
Aggregate net income totaled NT$31.21 billion (US$1.01 billion) last month, compared with net losses of NT$5.99 billion in December last year, corporate data showed.
However, that represented a 43.05 percent decline from NT$54.8 billion in January last year.
Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), the nation’s largest financial holding firm by market value, posted NT$4.7 billion in net income last month, or earnings per share of NT$0.37, making it the most profitable among the 15.
That was an improvement from a net loss of NT$4.12 billion in December last year, but still represented a 67.7 percent fall from NT$14.57 billion in January last year, Cathay Financial said.
The company’s main subsidiary, Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), reported NT$2.23 billion in net profit, with its first-year premiums totaling NT$2.07 billion, while the company’s banking arm, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行), booked earnings of NT$2.22 billion on the back of steady fee income.
CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) outperformed Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) to rank as the second most profitable, with net income of NT$4.08 billion last month, or earnings per share of NT$0.21, as its banking and insurance units saw steady earnings growth on recovering global equity markets.
Ranking third, Fubon Financial posted net income of NT$3.69 billion, or earnings per share of NT$0.36, as Fubon Life Insurance Co’s (富邦人壽) profit dropped significantly from NT$5.03 billion a year earlier to NT$10.52 million, company data showed.
Fubon Life attributed the plunge to higher operating costs last month and flat investment returns, but the insurer’s first-year premiums jumped 119 percent monthly to NT$36.3 billion and total premiums rose 49 percent to NT$75.1 billion, reaching a record high, it said.
Fubon Financial’s banking arm, Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank (台北富邦銀行), saw its net income advance 28 percent on the back of steadily growing fee income, it said.
Four other firms that posted net losses in December — Yuanta Financial Holding Co (元大金控), Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控), Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控) and China Development Financial Holding Corp (中華開發金控) — swung back into profit last month.
However, on an annual basis, only Taishin Financial saw net income grow — by 28 percent to NT$1.85 billion last month — while the other three reported net income declines.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Taiwan has enough crude oil reserves for more than 100 days and sufficient natural gas reserves for more than 11 days, both above the regulatory safety requirement, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, adding that the government would prioritize domestic price stability as conflicts in the Middle East continue. Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month, Kung told reporters after meeting with representatives from business groups at the ministry in Taipei. The ministry has been holding daily cross-ministry meetings at the Executive Yuan to ensure
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI
RSS