Antai Life Insurance Co (安泰人壽), a new subsidiary of Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), yesterday won the auction for the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi A11 department store building with a bid of NT$11.6 billion (US$347 million), NT$1.6 billion higher than the floor price.
The auction, held in the headquarters of Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽), owner of the building in Xinyi District (信義), drew two other bidders, Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), the nation’s largest insurer, and Tinghsin International Group (頂新集團), the instant noodle giant.
Fubon Financial president Victor Kung (龔天行) said he was glad Antai Life won the bid as it would enhance the insurance company’s asset portfolio.
“The building is expected to generate near 4 percent of annual rental yield on the premium,” Kung said by telephone.
Kung said the purchase of the Shin Kong building fell in line with Antai Life’s goal of raising its stake in real estate properties. Property investment accounts for barely 3 percent of its total investments and the company intends to boost the figure to between 5 percent and 10 percent over the next few years, he said. Shin Kong is expected to book an estimated gain of NT$7.3 billion from the sale, it said in a statement to the stock exchange yesterday.
The building sits on 2,534 ping (8,377m2) of land with total floor space of 19,205 ping (63,489.11m2) and will continue to house the department store as the lease will not expire for four years.
Jeffrey Huang (黃增福), head of research at Evertrust Rehouse (永慶房屋), called the deal a bargain, adding that commercial properties remained attractive.
“The building is a worthy investment choice for business groups with ample idle funds,” Huang said by telephone. “But only buyers with deep pockets can afford to take part in the bid.”
It cost Antai NT$3.7 million per ping for the land alone, the third highest price in the district.
Shin Kong Life, while losing money in recent years, reaped a large profit of NT$7.28 billion from the sale. The third-largest insurer acquired the land in 1988 for NT$2.8 billion and spent another NT$1.52 billion to construct the building, a company official said, asking not to be named.
“The gain did not include rental income over the years,” he said by telephone. “The company sold the property to strengthen its capital structure and adjust its real estate portfolio.”
IN A HURRY: The 199,200 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine expire on May 31, so the CECC might expand vaccine eligibility, but distribution would begin in a week at the earliest The first batch of COVID-19 vaccines allocated to Taiwan through the COVAX global vaccine-sharing program arrived yesterday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said, adding that, after testing, it would be able to distribute them by Monday next week at the earliest. The 199,200 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine were shipped from Amsterdam on a China Airlines (中華航空) plane and arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5:21am. After the cargo was examined and release procedures were completed at the airport, the Aviation Police Bureau escorted the vehicles carrying the vaccines to a cold chain storage facility. Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General
HEATED TRAFFIC: As Beijing holds naval drills near Taiwan, the Ministry of National Defense said it had a full grasp of the situation and would handle it ‘appropriately’ A Chinese carrier group exercising near Taiwan is part of what are to be regular drills, the Chinese navy said in a statement late on Monday, further escalating tensions between Taipei and Beijing. The group, including the aircraft carrier Liaoning, was conducting “routine” drills in the waters around Taiwan, a move to “enhance its capability to safeguard national sovereignty, safety and development interests,” the statement said. “Similar exercises will be conducted regularly,” it said, without elaborating. The statement came after the Ministry of National Defense earlier on Monday issued a statement regarding a rise in the number of incursions by Chinese jets into
AIMED AT TAIWAN? Institute for National Defense and Security Research research fellow Ou Si-fu said chips can be ‘bought off the shelf’ and then used in weapons The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday said that chips from Taiwanese semiconductor companies were not making their way into Chinese missiles “to the best of our knowledge.” A report in yesterday’s Washington Post alleged that a Chinese company named Phytium Technology Co (飛騰) used chips made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), along with US software, in advanced Chinese military systems. “TSMC has long placed strict controls on their chips. The export of high-tech products from Taiwan is also highly regulated,” Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) said. “According to our understanding, none of the end uses for those products
NO TIME: The driver tried to apply the brakes when he saw the truck, but the train did not have time to come to a full stop, an investigation report said The crane truck that caused last week’s fatal train accident had slid onto the tracks about one-and-a-half minutes before it was struck, the Taiwan Transportation Safety Board said yesterday. The board had launched an investigation into the derailment, which killed 50 people and injured 211 people, making it the nation’s most devastating railway accident in decades. Carrying 494 passengers and four Taiwan Railways Administration personnel, the southbound express train to Taitung hit the truck as it was about to enter the Cingshuei Tunnel (清水隧道) in Hualien’s Sioulin Township (秀林). The train derailed following the collision, with the left side of the eighth