China Development Financial Holding Corp (CDFHC, 中華開發金控) plans to delay its acquisition of China Life Insurance Co (中國人壽), as the insurer’s shareholders might be hesitant to sell their holdings at a lower price, it said yesterday.
China Life’s share price tumbled 26 percent to NT$25.9 yesterday, compared with NT$35 in September 2017, when CDFHC acquired 25 percent of the outstanding shares of the company, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
In 2017, the financial holding company, which owns a 35 percent stake in China Life, promised the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) it would fully acquire the insurance company within two-and-half years, which would be in March this year, corporate data showed.
Although the company said it hopes the FSC would grant it a grace period for the full acquisition, the regulator yesterday said that it has not yet received an application to do so.
“Our acquisition cost could be reduced if we are to acquire China Life now, thanks to the company’s lower share price,” CDFHC spokesman Richard Chang (張立筌) told the Taipei Times by telephone.
“However, we decided to delay doing that, as we expect China Life’s retail shareholders might not be interested in selling stocks to us at NT$25 now,” Chang said.
Even though China Life’s board of directors would approve the acquisition, the insurer’s retail investors play a key role in the success of the deal, Chang said, adding that the right timing to proceed might be when its share price rebounds, which would be difficult to predict.
Weak confidence in the life insurance business in recent years attributed to the decline, he said.
China Life was the engine that fueled CDFHC’s profit growth last year, Chang said. It posted 34 percent annual growth in net profit to NT$13.59 billion (US$453.6 million) last year, company data showed.
CDFHC has no plan to launch fundraising projects this year, which would mean issuing new common shares, as it aims to maintain higher earnings per share, Chang said.
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