Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控) might consider raising fresh capital to boost the financial strength of its life insurance arm, the company told an online investors’ conference in Taipei on Thursday.
Eyeing an annual NT$30 billion (US$1.08 billion) contractual service margin, Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽) aims to maintain a risk-based capital ratio greater than 200 percent, and the insurer would therefore need fresh funds to expand its assets and scale up its business, Shin Kong Financial spokesman Stan Lee (李超儒) said.
“We do not see an urgent need to inject capital immediately, but we might do so later this year,” said Lee, who is a senior vice president at the life insurance arm. “The amount of fresh capital would be less than NT$10 billion.”
Photo courtesy of Shin Kong Financial Holding Co
Shin Kong Financial might raise fresh capital every year in the coming years, he said, adding that the firm aims to raise NT$10 billion each year.
After issuing preferred shares last year, it would from now on prioritize issuing common shares, he said.
Separately, Shin Kong Life on Thursday reported a 46.4 percent drop in its first-year premiums to NT$11 billion in the first quarter of this year due to a high comparison base last year.
Sales of traditional insurance policies halved year-on-year to NT$8.8 billion last quarter, while sales of policies denominated in foreign currencies totaled NT$8.5 billion, it said.
The life insurer expects that its first-year premiums for the whole of this year would drop 20 percent from last year’s NT$72.39 billion, as it has adjusted its strategy to focus on products with more protection, it said.
Sweeping policy changes under US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr are having a chilling effect on vaccine makers as anti-vaccine rhetoric has turned into concrete changes in inoculation schedules and recommendations, investors and executives said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has in the past year upended vaccine recommendations, with the country last month ending its longstanding guidance that all children receive inoculations against flu, hepatitis A and other diseases. The unprecedented changes have led to diminished vaccine usage, hurt the investment case for some biotechs, and created a drag that would likely dent revenues and
Macronix International Co (旺宏), the world’s biggest NOR flash memory supplier, yesterday said it would spend NT$22 billion (US$699.1 million) on capacity expansion this year to increase its production of mid-to-low-density memory chips as the world’s major memorychip suppliers are phasing out the market. The company said its planned capital expenditures are about 11 times higher than the NT$1.8 billion it spent on new facilities and equipment last year. A majority of this year’s outlay would be allocated to step up capacity of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chips, which are used in embedded multimedia cards (eMMC), a managed
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
In the wake of strong global demand for AI applications, Taiwan’s export-oriented economy accelerated with the composite index of economic indicators flashing the first “red” light in December for one year, indicating the economy is in booming mode, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Moreover, the index of leading indicators, which gauges the potential state of the economy over the next six months, also moved higher in December amid growing optimism over the outlook, the NDC said. In December, the index of economic indicators rose one point from a month earlier to 38, at the lower end of the “red” light.
RSS