CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) topped the list of average board of director salaries in 2019 by compensating its board members an average of NT$89.88 million (US$3.16 million), overtaking Yageo Corp (國巨), data released yesterday by the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) showed.
The compensation includes cash, stock rewards and other types of payment to a director for their service in the board room, but excludes a paycheck for an additional role in management or for being a company employee, the TWSE said.
In 2018, CTBC Financial ranked No. 2 with an average package of NT$73.7 million, but its board compensation in 2019 rose 21.95 percent thanks to the increasing price of the company stock included in the package, the data showed.
In 2019, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, came in at No. 2 with an average board salary of NT$43.87 million, up 9.3 percent from 2018, the data showed.
Total board compensation at TSMC tallied NT$376 million in 2019 and accounted for 0.1 percent of its net profit that year, lower than the limit of 0.3 percent set in its bylaws, the data showed.
Handset camera lens maker Largan Precision Co (大立光) ranked third with an average compensation of NT$34.89 million, up 36 percent from 2018 thanks to an increase in net profit, the data showed.
Yageo dropped to fourth in 2019 from the top position in 2018, as its average remuneration slid to NT$31.2 million from NT$114.23 million — a decline of 72 percent — when the nation’s largest passive components supplier saw its annual net profit shrink 79 percent to NT$6.9 billion, the data showed.
Yuanta Financial Holding Co (元大金控) ranked fifth in 2019 with an average package of NT$27.62 million, followed by Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控) with NT$27.14 million and Uni-President Enterprises Corp (統一) with NT$25.44 million, the data showed.
Hotai Motor Co Ltd (和泰汽車) ranked eighth in 2019 with NT$22.82 million, followed by China Development Financial Holding Corp (中華開發金控) with NT$20.28 million and Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) with NT$20.23 million.
SECOND-RATE: Models distilled from US products do not perform the same as the original and undo measures that ensure the systems are neutral, the US’ cable said The US Department of State has ordered a global push to bring attention to what it said are widespread efforts by Chinese companies, including artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek (深度求索), to steal intellectual property from US AI labs, according to a diplomatic cable. The cable, dated Friday and sent to diplomatic and consular posts around the world, instructs diplomatic staff to speak to their foreign counterparts about “concerns over adversaries’ extraction and distillation of US AI models.” Distillation is the process of training smaller AI models using output from larger, more expensive ones to lower the costs of training a powerful new
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings’ planned acquisition of Foodpanda’s Taiwan operations has yet to enter the formal review stage, as regulators await supplementary documents, the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said yesterday. Acting FTC Chairman Chen Chih-min (陳志民) told the legislature’s Economics Committee that although Grab submitted its application on March 27, the case has not been officially accepted because required materials remain incomplete. Once the filing is finalized, the FTC would launch a formal probe into the deal, focusing on issues such as cross-shareholding and potential restrictions on market competition, Chen told lawmakers. Grab last month announced that it would acquire
The artificial intelligence (AI) boom has triggered a seismic reshuffling of global equity markets, with Taiwan and South Korea muscling past European nations one by one. With its stock market now valued at nearly US$4.3 trillion, Taiwan surpassed the UK, Europe’s biggest market, earlier this month, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. South Korea is about US$140 billion away from doing the same. The tech-heavy Asian markets have shot past Germany and France in the past seven months. The shift is largely down to massive gains in shares of three companies that provide essential hardware for AI: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電),
Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) have repeatedly hit new highs, but an equity analyst said the stock’s valuation remains within a reasonable range and any pullback would likely be technical. The contract chipmaker’s historical price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio has ranged between 20 and 30, Cathay Futures Consultant Co (國泰證期) analyst Tsai Ming-han (蔡明翰) told Central News Agency. With market consensus projecting that TSMC would post earnings per share of about NT$100 (US$3.17) this year, supported by strong global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, and the stock currently trading at a P/E ratio of below 25, Tsai said the valuation