Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽), a local subsidiary of American International Group Inc (AIG), yesterday denied reports by the Chinese-language media that “hundreds” of policyholders had decided to terminate their insurance contracts because of worries about its troubled US parent company.
Most policyholders who called up the life insurer in the past few days have found their worries to be unfounded, Nan Shan vice president April Pan (潘玲嬌) said yesterday by telephone.
“We believe the number of panicking policyholders will dwindle after they have been thoroughly briefed by us and understand that the company’s operations are unaffected by the US company,” she said.
Pan refused to disclose the exact number of policyholders who had terminated their policies.
“We’re still operating normally,” she reiterated yesterday, adding that the rights of the firm’s 3.93 million policyholders were well protected.
Having operated in Taiwan for 45 years, Nan Shan is committed to the local market and plans to improve its services here, the insurer said in a statement released yesterday.
The Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday also expressed a positive view on the viability of Nan Shan.
The US Federal Reserve’s US$85 billion rescue loan will enable AIG to honor its liabilities, the commission said in a statement.
The impact of the US insurance giant’s troubles on its local subsidiaries, including AIG Investment Corp (友邦投顧) and AIG Securities Investment & Trust Co (友邦投信), appeared to be limited yesterday.
AIG Credit Card (友邦國際信用卡) said it had only received a few phone calls from nervous cardholders, who are also Nan Shan policyholders, inquiring about their rights to insurance policies, said Angel Cheng (鄭宇秀), AIG Credit Card’s assistant vice president.
Cheng rejected media speculation that AIG planned to sell off its local credit card division as a result of its recent troubles.
She said the credit-card firm was put up for sale in May after more than 10 financial institutions expressed an interest in it.
“Ideally, the company hopes to close the deal by the end of this year,” Cheng said, adding that less than 10 potential buyers had completed due diligence checks on the company and entered the final stage to negotiate a price.
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
A proposed 100 percent tariff on chip imports announced by US President Donald Trump could shift more of Taiwan’s semiconductor production overseas, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) researcher said yesterday. Trump’s tariff policy will accelerate the global semiconductor industry’s pace to establish roots in the US, leading to higher supply chain costs and ultimately raising prices of consumer electronics and creating uncertainty for future market demand, Arisa Liu (劉佩真) at the institute’s Taiwan Industry Economics Database said in a telephone interview. Trump’s move signals his intention to "restore the glory of the US semiconductor industry," Liu noted, saying that
STILL UNCLEAR: Several aspects of the policy still need to be clarified, such as whether the exemptions would expand to related products, PwC Taiwan warned The TAIEX surged yesterday, led by gains in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), after US President Donald Trump announced a sweeping 100 percent tariff on imported semiconductors — while exempting companies operating or building plants in the US, which includes TSMC. The benchmark index jumped 556.41 points, or 2.37 percent, to close at 24,003.77, breaching the 24,000-point level and hitting its highest close this year, Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) data showed. TSMC rose NT$55, or 4.89 percent, to close at a record NT$1,180, as the company is already investing heavily in a multibillion-dollar plant in Arizona that led investors to assume
AI: Softbank’s stake increases in Nvidia and TSMC reflect Masayoshi Son’s effort to gain a foothold in key nodes of the AI value chain, from chip design to data infrastructure Softbank Group Corp is building up stakes in Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the latest reflection of founder Masayoshi Son’s focus on the tools and hardware underpinning artificial intelligence (AI). The Japanese technology investor raised its stake in Nvidia to about US$3 billion by the end of March, up from US$1 billion in the prior quarter, regulatory filings showed. It bought about US$330 million worth of TSMC shares and US$170 million in Oracle Corp, they showed. Softbank’s signature Vision Fund has also monetized almost US$2 billion of public and private assets in the first half of this year,
RSS