Shin Kong Financial Holding Co’s (新光金控) shareholders on Friday approved a proposal to distribute a cash dividend of NT$0.4 per share, but some shareholders suggested that the company offer a higher payout to boost its share price, which has been about NT$8 in recent trading sessions.
Shin Kong Financial acting chairman Lee Tseng-chang (李增昌) said the company has over the past few years needed to set aside more of its earnings, as Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽) would need more capital after it adopts the International Financial Reporting Standards 17 (IFRS 17) in 2026.
The company could likely pay higher cash dividends after the life insurance arm adapts to the stricter accounting rules, Lee told the company’s annual general meeting in Taipei.
Photo courtesy of Shin Kong Financial Holding Co
Shin Kong Life Insurance would also contribute more revenue after 2026, he added.
This year, Shin Kong Life Insurance has posted credit losses of NT$3.16 billion (US$107.67 million) because of its exposure to Russian bonds — greater than other Taiwanese life insurers — although its bonds have not defaulted.
The insurer has received interest income in US dollars three times and expects to receive another payment in US dollars next month, Shin Kong Financial said.
Addressing shareholders’ concerns that a merger with Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控) would be difficult because the firms are quite different, Shin Kong Financial independent director Shiu Yung-ming (許永明) said that the merger would be one way to enlarge the business quickly.
The company must consider all possible mergers and acquisitions for business expansion, he added.
The board of directors has agreed to conduct feasibility studies on potential mergers with other financial holding companies, Shiu said.
CHIP HANG-UP: Surging memorychip prices would deal a blow to smartphone sales this year, potentially hindering one of MediaTek’s biggest sources of revenue MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip designer, yesterday said its new artificial intelligence (AI) chips used in data centers are to account for 20 percent of its total revenue next year, as cloud service providers race to deploy AI infrastructure to meet voracious demand. MediaTek is believed to be developing tensor processing units for Google, which are used in AI applications. While it did not confirm such reports, MediaTek said its new application-specific IC (ASIC) business would be a new growth engine for the company. It again hiked its forecast for the addressable ASIC market to US$70 billion by 2028, compared
MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier, yesterday said it plans to double investment in data center-related technologies, including advanced packaging and high-speed interconnect technologies, to broaden the new business’ customer and service portfolios. The chip designer is redirecting its resources to data centers, mainly designing application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities for cloud service providers. The data center business is forecast to lead growth in the next three years and become the company’s second-biggest revenue source, replacing chips used in smart devices, MediaTek president Joe Chen (陳冠州) told a media event in Taipei. “Three or four years
Until US President Donald Trump’s return a year ago, when the EU talked about cutting economic dependency on foreign powers — it was understood to mean China, but now Brussels has US tech in its sights. As Trump ramps up his threats — from strong-arming Europe on trade to pushing to seize Greenland — concern has grown that the unpredictable leader could, should he so wish, plunge the bloc into digital darkness. Since Trump’s Greenland climbdown, top officials have stepped up warnings that the EU is dangerously exposed to geopolitical shocks and must work toward strategic independence — in defense, energy and
Motorists ride past a mural along a street in Varanasi, India, yesterday.
RSS