As expected, Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑) yesterday elected Cher Wang (王雪紅), a daughter of its founder, to its board, while again keeping her brother Winston Wong (王文洋) from the family business.
In a shareholders meeting in Taipei, Cher’s sister Susan Wang (王瑞華) and Lee Chih-tsuen (李志村), chairman of Taipei-listed Formosa Plastics, were re-elected to the 15-member board.
Formosa Plastics is the world’s second-biggest maker of polyvinyl chloride, or PVC. The company is the second major unit of Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團), Taiwan’s largest diversified industrial company, to reshuffle its board amid market speculations that Wong would return to the group after he left an FPG unit in 1995 and after his father Wang Yung-ching (王永慶) died in October last year.
Winston has recently triggered a confrontation with other members in the family. On May 13, he filed a complaint in a state court in Newark, New Jersey, seeking to manage their father’s fortune after Wang Yung-ching died in the US without a will.
On Thursday, FPG’s oil-refining unit Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) surprised the market by electing Winston’s brother Walter Wang (王文祥) to its board, escalating the tension between Wong and his other family members.
“The election of Cher Wang is a move to create an atmosphere of family unity,” said Gavin Tsai, an analyst at Polaris Securities Co (寶來證券).
Cher is chairwoman of mobile phone maker HTC Corp (宏達電) and also Taiwan’s richest woman, according to a list published by Forbes magazine in June last year.
William Wong (王文淵), chief executive officer of FPG, declined to answer reporters’ questions about whether the family members have other arrangements for Winston. “[We] will see,” local cable TV station USTV quoted him as saying yesterday.
Formosa Plastics’ Lee said he also was not aware of whether Winston will sit on the board of another Formosa unit, Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp (台灣化纖), which will hold its board election on June 19.
Lee said the suit filed by Winston was not expected to impact on Formosa Plastics’ operations, which saw profits fall 59 percent last year to NT$19.7 billion (US$604 million) as the global recession hit demand for PVC.
Earlier yesterday, Lee told shareholders that the world’s petrochemicals output capacity may rise less than previously forecast because of project delays in the Middle East.
Global ethylene output capacity will probably increase by less than 4 million tonnes this year, below a previous forecast of about 9 million tonnes, he said.
“Conditions aren’t as bad as previously thought,” Lee said.
Demand for petrochemical products has improved, helped by Chinese purchases, he said.
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