Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) yesterday said its net value rose about NT$10 billion (US$343 million) following a reclassification of assets held by its life insurance unit under the International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) 9 guidelines, which translates into a gain of NT$1 per share.
Excluding gains from the IFRS 9 reclassification, Fubon Life Insurance Co (富邦人壽), the company’s most profitable unit, saw its net value at the end of last year grow NT$59.4 billion to NT$272.9 billion as declining US debt yields helped boost equity investment profits at home and abroad.
The life insurer said that realized gains from equity investments surged 147.5 percent year-on-year to NT$25.5 billion.
However, a stronger New Taiwan dollar saw its hedging costs and foreign exchange-related losses widen to 133 basis points at the end of last year from 90 basis points at the end of 2016.
In light of rising currency swap costs, which expanded to 89 basis points at the end of last year from 52 basis points in 2016, the insurer said it would reduce its unhedged US dollar position.
Fubon Life’s post-hedge investment fell from 4.3 percent in 2016 to 3.93 percent last year.
Meanwhile, Fubon Commercial Bank (台北富邦銀行) said that each 25 basis point interest rate increase by the US Federal Reserve is expected to raise the lender’s net interest income by about NT$160 million.
Foreign currency loans grew 18.3 percent year-on-year to NT$221.3 billion last year, the bank said.
Fubon Bank (China) Co Ltd (富邦華一銀行), the only Taiwanese-run lender to have a full banking license in China, saw its net profit fall to NT$1 billion last year from NT$2 billion in 2016.
Fubon Financial said it has no immediate plans to hold an initial public offering for its China-based lender, adding that it is planning to open two or three new branches in Shanghai to expand its wealth management business.
Overall, Fubon Financial’s net income rose 11.8 percent year-on-year to NT$54.12 billion last year, or earnings per share of NT$5.19.
AI REVOLUTION: The event is to take place from Wednesday to Friday at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center’s halls 1 and 2 and would feature more than 1,100 exhibitors Semicon Taiwan, an annual international semiconductor exhibition, would bring leaders from the world’s top technology firms to Taipei this year, the event organizer said. The CEO Summit is to feature nine global leaders from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), Applied Materials Inc, Google, Samsung Electronics Co, SK Hynix Inc, Microsoft Corp, Interuniversity Microelectronic Centre and Marvell Technology Group Ltd, SEMI said in a news release last week. The top executives would delve into how semiconductors are positioned as the driving force behind global technological innovation amid the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, the organizer said. Among them,
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
Former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) yesterday warned against the tendency to label stakeholders as either “pro-China” or “pro-US,” calling such rigid thinking a “trap” that could impede policy discussions. Liu, an adviser to the Cabinet’s Economic Development Committee, made the comments in his keynote speech at the committee’s first advisers’ meeting. Speaking in front of Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) and other officials, Liu urged the public to be wary of falling into the “trap” of categorizing people involved in discussions into either the “pro-China” or “pro-US” camp. Liu,
Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) yesterday said Taiwan’s government plans to set up a business service company in Kyushu, Japan, to help Taiwanese companies operating there. “The company will follow the one-stop service model similar to the science parks we have in Taiwan,” Kuo said. “As each prefecture is providing different conditions, we will establish a new company providing services and helping Taiwanese companies swiftly settle in Japan.” Kuo did not specify the exact location of the planned company but said it would not be in Kumamoto, the Kyushu prefecture in which Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC, 台積電) has a
RSS