PAPER
Chair forged seals: TPPC
Taiwan Pulp and Paper Corp (TPPC, 台灣紙業) chairman Chien Hung-wen (簡鴻文) has been accused of forging company seals, according to TPPC’s filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Friday. The filing said Chien submitted an application to the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Department of Commerce to replace original company seals with new ones, believed to be fake. TPPC said it is seeking an administrative remedy for the accusation to ensure shareholders’ interests. Chien denied the allegation, saying that he had to file an application for new company seals as TPPC officials refused to provide him with original ones. He said the process of seal changes was completely legal.
CREDIT
Fraud reports hit new high
Credit card fraud reported in Taiwan hit a record-high last year, according to statistics released by the National Credit Card Center yesterday. Last year, credit card fraud totaled NT$1.3 billion (US$42.24 million) in Taiwan, more than triple the NT$328 million recorded in 2013, the center said. Eighty-nine percent of that — NT$1.16 billion — involved online transactions, a sharp increase from NT$268 million in 2013, the center said. The center also discovered that 95 percent of the fraudulent online transactions occurred overseas, which it attributed to the popularity of shopping on overseas Web sites.
ITALY
Chinese bank to pay fine
Italian media outlets reported that the Bank of China (中國銀行) has agreed to pay a fine of 600,000 euros (US$636,870), as part of a plea deal in a 4.5 billion euro money laundering probe. ANSA reported that at a preliminary hearing on Friday four bank officials were convicted of money laundering, while a charge of employing Mafia methods was dropped. The judge sentenced the bank officials to a two-year suspended sentence and ordered the seizure of 980,000 euros, equal to what prosecutors said were the bank’s profits in the scheme.
BANKING
Citigroup cuts CEO’s pay
Citigroup Inc’s board of directors is paying chief executive officer Michael Corbat US$15.5 million for last year, down from the US$16.5 million pay packet he received in 2015. The board on Friday said that in addition to his US$1.5 million base salary, Corbat is to receive US$4.2 million in cash and US$9.8 million in stock awards. The board said the package reflects Corbat’s work to shrink and restructure Citi following the financial crisis. Citigroup almost entirely wound down Citi Holdings last year, which is the “bad bank” part of Citigroup where the company housed all of the toxic assets.
FINANCE
Fannie Mae profits double
Fannie Mae on Friday said that it would pay the US Department of the Treasury a US$5.5 billion dividend next month after its profit doubled in its latest quarter. The government-controlled mortgage company has already paid the treasury US$154.4 billion in dividends since receiving US$116.1 billion in government bailouts between 2008 and 2011. Fannie Mae’s sibling Freddie Mac, which was also rescued by the government during the recession, on Thursday said that it would pay the treasury a US$4.5 billion dividend next month after its profits soared.
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
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