SinoPac Financial Holdings Co (永豐金控) aims to maintain its dividend payout ratio at 60 percent next year as it is on track to post stable profit growth this year, the company told an investors’ conference in Taipei yesterday.
The company’s net profit for the first three quarters of this year rose 1.1 percent year-on-year to a record NT$12.93 billion (US$421.4 million), while many of its local peers reported double-digit percentage point drops in profit due to sluggish insurance business performance.
“We will strive to keep our payout ratio at 60 percent next year, as we know investors value companies with a stable cash dividend yield,” SinoPac Financial president Stanley Chu (朱士廷) said.
Photo: Kelson Wang, Taipei Times
The company plans to distribute cash and stock dividends next year, chief financial officer Kerry Hsu (許如玫) said.
With retained earnings of NT$26.4 billion as of the end of September, as well as capital adequacy ratio and double leverage ratio standing at 117 percent and 113 percent respectively, the company is confident that it would gain approval from the Financial Supervisory Commission for its planned dividend payouts next year, Hsu said.
The company plans to inject capital of NT$10 billion into Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行) to bolster the banking arm’s financial profile and expand its business scale, Chu said, adding that he expects the bank to earn more interest income next year.
The capital injection is expected to be completed by the end of March next year, the company said.
In the first three quarters, Bank SinoPac’s net profit grew 33 percent annually to NT$12.07 billion as increases in interest income offset declines in net fee income amid shrinking wealth management and credit card businesses.
The bank’s net interest margin rose 10 basis points from a quarter earlier to 1.29 percent at the end of September, while its loans expanded 9.1 percent in the first three quarters, faster than deposits, which rose less than 1 percent during the same period, it said.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves hit a record high at the end of last month, surpassing the US$600 billion mark for the first time, the central bank said yesterday. Last month, the country’s foreign exchange reserves rose US$5.51 billion from a month earlier to reach US$602.94 billion due to an increase in returns from the central bank’s portfolio management, the movement of other foreign currencies in the portfolio against the US dollar and the bank’s efforts to smooth the volatility of the New Taiwan dollar. Department of Foreign Exchange Director-General Eugene Tsai (蔡炯民)said a rate cut cycle launched by the US Federal Reserve
Handset camera lens maker Largan Precision Co (大立光) on Sunday reported a 6.71 percent year-on-year decline in revenue for the third quarter, despite revenue last month hitting the highest level in 11 months. Third-quarter revenue was NT$17.68 billion (US$581.2 million), compared with NT$18.95 billion a year earlier, the company said in a statement. The figure was in line with Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co’s (元大投顧) forecast of NT$17.9 billion, but missed the market consensus estimate of NT$18.97 billion. The third-quarter revenue was a 51.44 percent increase from NT$11.67 billion in the second quarter, as the quarter is usually the peak
Nvidia Corp’s major server production partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) reported 10.99 percent year-on-year growth in quarterly sales, signaling healthy demand for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. Revenue totaled NT$2.06 trillion (US$67.72 billion) in the last quarter, in line with analysts’ projections, a company statement said. On a quarterly basis, revenue was up 14.47 percent. Hon Hai’s businesses cover four primary product segments: cloud and networking, smart consumer electronics, computing, and components and other products. Last quarter, “cloud and networking products delivered strong growth, components and other products demonstrated significant growth, while smart consumer electronics and computing products slightly declined,” compared with the
The US government on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen companies in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, including offshoots of a US chip firm, accusing the businesses of providing illicit support to Iran’s military or proxies. The US Department of Commerce included two subsidiaries of US-based chip distributor Arrow Electronics Inc (艾睿電子) on its so-called entity list published on the federal register for facilitating purchases by Iran’s proxies of US tech. Arrow spokesman John Hourigan said that the subsidiaries have been operating in full compliance with US export control regulations and his company is discussing with the US Bureau of
RSS