State-owned Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行) plans to strengthen its core businesses this year as it expands its corporate and overseas lending.
The nation’s largest mortgage operator recorded NT$11.86 billion (US$405.37 million) in pre-tax income last year, the seventh consecutive year it posted above the NT$10 billion mark.
It beat the government’s budget target by 32 percent despite its share in a syndicated loan to troubled Ching Fu Shipbuilding Co (慶富造船).
“This year, Land Bank is seeking to consolidate its leadership position in land financing home loan and real-estate-backed trust operations in the local market,” chairwoman Joanne Ling (凌忠嫄) told a news conference on Tuesday.
Outstanding loans stood at NT$1.86 trillion at the end of last year, an 4.45 percent increase from a year earlier and a figure that met 98.98 percent of the government’s budget plan, Ling said.
The improvement in housing transactions and buying interest bodes well for related businesses, she said.
As the global economy remains healthy, Land Bank will search for syndicated loan opportunities and shore up relationships with small and medium-sized enterprises, which pay higher interest rates than large corporate or government borrowers, Ling said.
It also plans to increase debt positions based in foreign currencies to take advantage of interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve and other central banks, she said.
Local equity holdings totaled NT$3 billion last year and there is room for upward revisions, Ling said, adding that the bank prefers stocks with relatively high dividends, but low volatility.
Land Bank has a heavy dependence on interest income and should try to tap other income sources such as trusts, securities and wealth management, Ling said.
It should boost its presence abroad from the seven branches and outlets it has now, and must not miss fast-growing business opportunities provided by mobile payments and other financial technologies, she said.
EXTRATERRITORIAL REACH: China extended its legal jurisdiction to ban some dual-use goods of Chinese origin from being sold to the US, even by third countries Beijing has set out to extend its domestic laws across international borders with a ban on selling some goods to the US that applies to companies both inside and outside China. The new export control rules are China’s first attempt to replicate the extraterritorial reach of US and European sanctions by covering Chinese products or goods with Chinese parts in them. In an announcement this week, China declared it is banning the sale of dual-use items to the US military and also the export to the US of materials such as gallium and germanium. Companies and people overseas would be subject to
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) yesterday said that Intel Corp would find itself in the same predicament as it did four years ago if its board does not come up with a core business strategy. Chang made the remarks in response to reporters’ questions about the ailing US chipmaker, once an archrival of TSMC, during a news conference in Taipei for the launch of the second volume of his autobiography. Intel unexpectedly announced the immediate retirement of former chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger last week, ending his nearly four-year tenure and ending his attempts to revive the
WORLD DOMINATION: TSMC’s lead over second-placed Samsung has grown as the latter faces increased Chinese competition and the end of clients’ product life cycles Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) retained the No. 1 title in the global pure-play wafer foundry business in the third quarter of this year, seeing its market share growing to 64.9 percent to leave South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co, the No. 2 supplier, further behind, Taipei-based TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report. TSMC posted US$23.53 billion in sales in the July-September period, up 13.0 percent from a quarter earlier, which boosted its market share to 64.9 percent, up from 62.3 percent in the second quarter, the report issued on Monday last week showed. TSMC benefited from the debut of flagship
TENSE TIMES: Formosa Plastics sees uncertainty surrounding the incoming Trump administration in the US, geopolitical tensions and China’s faltering economy Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), Taiwan’s largest industrial conglomerate, yesterday posted overall revenue of NT$118.61 billion (US$3.66 billion) for last month, marking a 7.2 percent rise from October, but a 2.5 percent fall from one year earlier. The group has mixed views about its business outlook for the current quarter and beyond, as uncertainty builds over the US power transition and geopolitical tensions. Formosa Plastics Corp (台灣塑膠), a vertically integrated supplier of plastic resins and petrochemicals, reported a monthly uptick of 15.3 percent in its revenue to NT$18.15 billion, as Typhoon Kong-rey postponed partial shipments slated for October and last month, it said. The
RSS