TCC Group (台泥集團) chairman Leslie Koo (辜成允) died early yesterday of severe head injuries sustained in a fall down a flight of stairs at a Taipei hotel on Saturday night.
Taiwan Cement Corp (台灣水泥), the flagship subsidiary of TCC Group, announced that Koo, 63, had died at 6:20am.
The accident occurred at the Regent Taipei (晶華酒店), where Koo had been attending a wedding banquet. The hotel yesterday lowered the corporate flags flying in front to half-mast in honor of Koo.
Photo: Yang Ya-min, Taipei Times
Sources said the Taipei Police Department is investigating Koo’s death, and yesterday called in two eyewitnesses and asked for the hotel for its ecurity camera footage.
The nation’s largest cement maker yesterday appointed board director Nelson Chang (張安平) to replace Koo as chairman.
The board of Taiwan Cement called a special meeting to put Chang, Koo’s brother-in law, who is also chief executive officer of LDC Hotels & Resorts Group (雲朗觀光集團), in charge of the 71-year-old company.
Photo: Wang I-hung, Taipei Times
Chang was also appointed chairman of two Taiwan Cement affiliates — China Synthetic Rubber Corp (CSRC, 中國合成橡膠) and Taiwan Prosperity Chemical Corp (TPCC, 信昌化學工業).
He previously served as vice chairman of Taiwan Cement and Chia Hsin Cement Corp (嘉新水泥).
“Taiwan Cement’s operation target for this year will not change and we will continue working on Koo’s “original plans” [for the whole group], Chang told reporters after the board meeting.
He also said that he was upbeat about the company’s sales outlook for this year.
Leslie Koo came from one of the largest and most prominent families in Taiwan, the Koos of Lukang. He was the second son of Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫), a former chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation, who died in 2005 at the age of 88.
Leslie Koo had led Taiwan Cement since 2003, transforming the company into the sixth-largest cement maker in China by capacity and the 12th-largest globally.
Taiwan Cement saw its net profit in the first three quarters of last year soar 13.63 percent to NT$4.55 billion (US$144.8 million).
Shares of Taiwan Cement yesterday gained 2.29 percent to close at NT$35.75 in Taipei trading after Chang’s announcement, while the benchmark increased 0.99 percent to 9,424.05 points.
Additional reporting by CNA
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
RSS