Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) yesterday reported pre-audit net profits of NT$10.378 billion (US$316.4 million) for the past three quarters, or NT$1.34 per share, on diversified incomes, bucking the downward trend, company executives told an investors conference yesterday.
“In the face of severe financial challenges, Fubon Financial’s array of subsidiaries have outperformed [their peers] with our solid capital position and strong earnings from diversified sources of revenues,” company chairman Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) said yesterday in a press statement.
Earnings generated by its banking arm, Taipei Fubon Bank (台北富邦銀行), as well as its Hong Kong subsidiary have become the parent company’s main driver of revenues and accounted for 55 percent of its total earnings, Tsai said.
The bank reported NT$4.844 billion in net profits for the first nine months of this year, or 17 percent growth from a year earlier.
The bank also saw 14 percent year-on-year growth in its loans business, including corporate lending and mortgages, whereas its provisions for bad loans declined 42 percent year-on-year to NT$3.9 billion last month, the statement said, adding that its previous credit card loan defaults had bottomed out.
As the regulator in Hong Kong has requested banks there to buy back loss-making structured notes, Fubon Financial’s banking subsidiary will be negatively affected and contribute less to the parent company, local media quoted its president Victor Kung (龔天行) as saying yesterday.
On the insurance front, Fubon Life Assurance Co (富邦人壽) greatly benefited from the sales of investment-linked policies to report 55 percent year-on-year growth in first-year premiums of NT$88.6 billion in the past nine months, securing market share of 13 percent, the nation’s second-largest, company vice chairman Richard Tsai (蔡明興) said yesterday in the statement.
The insurer’s net profits, however, dropped 55 percent year-on-year to NT$1.7 billion in the past three quarters, due to a stronger New Taiwan dollar and rising provisions, Tsai said.
Its non-life insurance arm — Fubon Insurance Co (富邦產險) — reported a better-than-expected net profit of NT$1.76 billion, outperforming all counterparts to secure the largest market share of 20.4 percent, the company said.
Amid the stock slump, the company’s securities brokerage nevertheless suffered a 65 percent decline in net profits, at NT$1.43 billion over the same period.
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