The Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee is expected to reach a decision today on whether to nationalize two Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-affiliated companies’ NT$15.6 billion (US$487.5 million) worth of stock, sources said.
The committee might nationalize the stock of Central Investment Co and its spinoff Hsinyutai Co, and transform the firms into state-invested enterprises if it deems that their ownership should be transferred to the government, committee spokeswoman Shih Chin-fang (施錦芳) said on Sunday.
According to sources familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity, the committee will decide whether the KMT’s initial investment in the two firms was funded by illicitly obtained properties, while discussing options including their nationalization, reorganization into autonomous entities, or compensating the original property owners with the value of their stock.
The committee on Nov. 2 ruled that the two companies are KMT “affiliated organizations” and barred them from disposing of their assets.
According to the committee’s preliminary investigation, as of last year, Central Investment had assets worth NT$26.5 billion — including 83 registered properties, and debts of NT$11.1 billion, so its net worth is NT$15.4 billion, while Hsinyutai, with two registered properties, has a net worth of about NT$190 million.
Central Investment reportedly has 15 subsidiaries, five of which it has invested directly in. They are: Yutai Development Co, Hsinkuanghua Co, Chiloo Industries, Chungyuan Constructions Co and Fengyuan Construction Co.
The five firms also have direct or indirect investments in 10 other companies, including Central Daily News Co, Yuhua Co and Central Investment, committee documents show.
The committee has scheduled a second hearing on Dec. 16 to investigate properties that the KMT had previously owned but later sold, focusing on the properties of Japanese-owned movie theaters that Central Motion Pictures Corp took over following Japan’s surrender in 1945, the luxury residential complex The Palace (帝寶) in Taipei and the former KMT headquarters facing the Presidential Office Building sold in 2006, the sources said.
The committee began collecting documents, including Control Yuan records, to ascertain whether uncompensated or significantly undercompensated appropriations had occurred during the KMT’s acquisition of the properties, the sources added.
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