Hua Nan Financial Holding Co (華南金控) is hoping to open its Shenzhen, China-based branch by the year’s end, while aggressively evaluating non-organic expansion opportunities in China, company executives said yesterday.
“We aim to provide better services to China-based Taiwanese businesses, especially small and medium-sized firms located in the Greater Pearl River Delta region via the platform facilitated by our Hong Kong branch and the soon-to-be-opened Shenzhen branch and our Macau branch,” company vice president David Cheng (鄭永春) told an investors’ conference yesterday.
The financial services provider is also aggressively evaluating the possibility of acquiring a stake in commercial banks in second-tier Chinese cities, while its securities investment trust arm would soon apply for a qualified foreign institutional investor account in China so as to be able buy shares, he added.
Looking ahead, the company has earmarked its goals, which include a 1 percent return on assets and a 15 percent return on equities, he said.
“We’ve recovered our growth momentum,” company president Ed Liu (劉茂賢) said.
Hua Nan also said its banking arm has limited exposure in lending and equity investments linked to four European countries that are causing concern — Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain.
Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行) has granted a syndicated loan, which accounts for 0.06 percent of its total lending, to a publicly-traded company located in one of those countries, executive vice president York Lai (賴明佑) told the investors’ conference, adding that there were no signs the loan would turn sour.
It had also booked an exposure to an equity investment issued by a major bank in the region that accounts for 0.07 percent of the Taiwanese bank’s total equity investments, he added.
The company yesterday posted NT$1.3 billion (US$40.4 million) in net income for the first quarter of this year, a 26 percent decline year-on-year.
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