The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) on Wednesday said that it would scrutinize the financial health of the buyer of Prudential Life Insurance Co of Taiwan (保德信人壽) after local media reported that potential buyers submitted bids on Monday.
“The buyer’s financial strength must be solid enough to support the newly acquired life insurance business, and we will check its double leverage ratio and other gauges that show capital adequacy,” a Banking Bureau official told the Taipei Times by telephone.
Financial strength is critical as local life insurers must adopt International Financial Reporting Standards 17 in five years, which have stricter rules on the calculation of liabilities, the official said.
The buyer must be knowledgeable and competent in the insurance business, protect the rights of policyholders and honor all old policies, the official said, adding that the buyer is expected to retain part of the business’ staff and commit to operating it long-term.
Ruen Chen Investment Holding Co (潤成投資) had to commit to not selling Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽) for a decade when it acquired the insurance company in 2011, the official said.
The commission rejected Taishin Financial Holding Co’s (台新金控) application to acquire New York Life Insurance Taiwan Corp (紐約人壽) in 2013, and turned down IBF Financial Holdings Co’s (國票金控) application to acquire MetLife Taiwan Insurance Co (大都會人壽) in 2010, the official added.
“The FSC has the power to veto a sale, so sellers in the financial industry usually take into account the commission’s criteria when reviewing buyers’ profiles, as they do not want to waste their time by selecting a buyer that would fail the regulator’s assessment,” a market analyst said.
The local unit of US-based Prudential Financial Inc on Wednesday confirmed that it is exploring strategic options, including a sale, but did not elaborate.
Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控) on Tuesday announced in a regulatory filing that its board of directors on Monday approved tendering a bid for an insurance company, without naming the company for the sake of confidentiality.
The Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported that First Financial Holding Co (第一金控) and Union Bank of Taiwan (聯邦銀行) had participated in the tender.
“It is understandable that some financial conglomerates without insurance units sought to acquire the foreign insurer, as the deal would give them new profit momentum, although they would face more pressure to retain capital adequacy,” Huang Der-yeh (黃達業), emeritus director of National Taiwan University’s Center for the Study of Banking and Finance, said by telephone.
Prudential Life Insurance Co of Taiwan, which began operations in 1990, has 700 sales personnel and 300 employees.
Its net worth fell to NT$7.2 billion (US$240.59 million) at the end of March, from NT$9 billion at the end of last year, company data showed.
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
FORESEEABLE CONSEQUENCES: New technology always comes with new innovations by the iniquitous in exploiting users for financial gain or more nefarious ends Artificial intelligence (AI) “agents” say they can save users time and energy by automating tasks, but the growing power of systems such as OpenClaw is putting cybersecurity experts on edge. Powered by a wave of hype, OpenClaw today says it has more than three million users worldwide. The system allows users to create so-called agents, tools based on a large language model (LLM) such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic PBC’s Claude, that can carry out online tasks. “We’ve moved from an AI you could talk with via a chatbot to an agentic AI, which can take action... the threat and the risks are
RSS