The newly elected top management at Taipei Financial Center Corp (TFCC, 台北金融大樓公司), which owns the Taipei 101 building, yesterday said it would end its loss-making days as early as next year.
“We aim to break even some time next year and reap an estimated [pre-tax] earning of NT$600 million [US$18.5 million] in three years,” said company chairman Harace Lin (林鴻明), who was promoted from his previous post as acting chairman and president during a board reshuffle yesterday.
Lin will keep his post as the company’s president.
As of the end of last month, TFCC had incurred NT$86 million in pre-tax losses, an 86 percent drop from one year earlier, its press statement said.
TFCC is expected to see a smaller loss of NT$100 million this year from last year’s pre-tax loss of NT$900 million, it said.
Lin, who represents the company’s biggest shareholder — the Ministry of Finance, which holds a 44 percent stake — said the company had first turned a monthly profit in April and June this year.
TFCC is targeted to see another NT$1 billion in before-tax earnings five years from now, he added.
The company’s board yesterday elected Wei Ing-chiao (魏應交), chairman of Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團), to be its vice chairman. Ting Hsin, which owns Wei Chuan Foods Corp (味全食品) in Taiwan and the instant-noodle brand Master Kong (康師傅) in China, is the second-largest shareholder in TFCC with a 37 percent stake.
In this board reshuffle, Ting Hsin secured five seats on the company’s 13-member board while the government controlled a majority with six seats, leaving one seat each to private shareholders Chinatrust Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) and Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控).
Besides Wei Ing-chiao, younger brother of Ting Hsin chairman Wei Ing-chou (魏應洲), the group yesterday successfully nominated Wei Ing-chun (魏應充), chairman of Wei Chuan and the second-youngest Wei brother; architect Eric Yao (姚仁祿); banker Benny Hu (胡定吾) and Dennis Chen (陳進財), vice president of Wei Chuan, as TFCC board members.
“I am here to learn,” Wei Ing-chiao told a media briefing yesterday where he highly recommended Lin as a professional to manage TFCC.
He, however, downplayed questions on whether the Wei family plans to increase their stake in TFCC and grab the chairmanship of TFCC within three years.
“We will do anything that is in the interest of all [TFCC] shareholders,” he said.
Additionally, Ting Hsin will soon take up some office space at the skyscraper as its corporate headquarters in Taipei, while mulling the possibility of opening an upscale Master Kong Beef Noodle restaurant there, as well, he said.
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