E. Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控) plans to formally expand into Cambodia as well as partner with a local firm in tapping the third-party payment market in Taiwan, senior executives said yesterday.
“We will host a banquet on Sept. 10 to announce our presence in Cambodia” after authorities approved the company’s purchase of a 70 percent stake in Phnom Penh-based Union Commercial Bank PLC (UCB) for US$69.33 million, E. Sun Financial president Joseph Huang (黃男州) told a media briefing.
UCB, with its five branches, will allow the bank-focused Taiwanese conglomerate a foothold to explore the 10-member ASEAN markets that will see greater integration in 2015, Huang said.
For a country like Cambodia with economic growth of 7 percent to 8 percent a year, financial institutes could aim for business growth two to three times as fast, Huang said.
The pace of growth may not translate into equal earnings contribution in the first year due to technology, personnel and other infrastructure investment expenditures, but may bear fruit in the second year, Huang said.
UCB generated US$5.1 million in net profit last year, up 13.84 percent from US$4.48 million in 2011 and five times the earnings of US$1 million in 2010, Huang said.
E. Sun Financial will handpick the UCB chief executive and control two-thirds of seats in its board room, he said.
Main subsidiary E. Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行) will seek to strengthen the Cambodian lender’s wealth management, mortgage and credit card businesses, but will not change its title, as it commands good name recognition as the eighth-largest bank in Cambodia, Huang said.
E. Sun Financial is also eyeing Myanmar after setting up a representative office in Yangon last month, which it is looking to upgrade into a branch in the future, Huang said.
E. Sun Bank will also soon apply for China’s approval to operate yuan business for its existing branch in Dongguan and establish its second Chinese branch in Shanghai, he said.
In Taiwan, E. Sun Financial has struck an agreement with a heavyweight local firm to jointly offer third-party payment services for online shopping, starting early next month, he said.
Huang declined to supply more information about the partner except that e-commerce may not be a major earnings driver, but may turn into a multi-billion dollar industry in a few years given the rapidly growing prevalence of on-line business transactions.
“E. Sun Bank aims to be the No. 1 player in e-commerce among peers,” Huang said.
To finance business expansions, E. Sun Financial will issue subordinate debts valued at NT$2.7 billion (US$90 million) on Wednesday last week and look for regulatory permission to issue another NT$5 billion worth of debts in the first quarter of next year, Huang said.
Shares in E. Sun Financial closed down 1.63 percent to NT$18.1 yesterday, compared with the TAIEX’s 0.28 percent rise, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in artificial-intelligence (AI) chips, yesterday said that small-volume production of 3-nanometer (nm) chips for a key customer is on track to start by the end of this year, dismissing speculation about delays in producing advanced chips. As Alchip is transitioning from 7-nanometer and 5-nanometer process technology to 3 nanometers, investors and shareholders have been closely monitoring whether the company is navigating through such transition smoothly. “We are proceeding well in [building] this generation [of chips]. It appears to me that no revision will be required. We have achieved success in designing
RSS