Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank’s (台北富邦銀行) board of directors yesterday approved a proposal to increase investment in the Web-only Line Bank Taiwan Ltd (連線商業銀行) by NT$2.195 billion (US$73.88 million), which is expected to raise its stake in the virtual bank from 25.1 percent to 27.18 percent.
Taipei Fubon would remain the second-largest shareholder in Line Bank after Line Financial Taiwan Corp (台灣連線金融科技), which holds a 49.9 percent stake.
Taipei Fubon’s decision came as Line Bank seeks to increase its paid-in capital by NT$7.5 billion after its accumulated pretax losses approached one-third of its paid-in capital of NT$10 billion.
Photo: Yang Hsin-hui, Taipei Times
Line Bank plans to first reduce its capital by NT$2.5 billion to cut losses and then increase capital by NT$7.5 billion, Taipei Fubon said.
CTBC Bank (中國信託銀行), which has a 5 percent stake in Line Bank, has yet to decide whether to boost its investment in the virtual bank, while other stakeholders Standard Chartered Bank (Taiwan) Ltd (渣打國際商業銀行) and Union Bank of Taiwan (聯邦銀行) said they would take part in the recapitalization scheme.
Line Bank is scheduled to hold a shareholders’ meeting tomorrow to discuss the capital increase plan.
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