Taiwan’s listed financial holding companies posted a combined net profit of NT$27.99 billion (US$871.3 million) last month, up 213.6 percent from a year earlier, driven by earnings contributed by their banking arms, companies’ regulatory filings showed.
Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) and Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) posted earnings of NT$5.4 billion and NT$4.77 billion respectively, making them the two most profitable financial conglomerates.
Their banking arms Taipei Fubon Bank (台北富邦銀行) and Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) continued to benefit from earlier interest rate hikes at home and abroad, the companies said.
Photo: CNA
In addition, their life insurance subsidiaries, Fubon Life Insurance Co (富邦人壽) and Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), received a boost in value for their US dollar-based assets at a time when global funds continued to flow to greenback-denominated investment tools that pay higher interest rates.
CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) reported earnings of NT$4.46 billion last month, ranking third as the company benefited from improving lending, wealth management and credit card operations at its banking subsidiary CTBC Bank (中國信託銀行), the company said.
Its life insurance subsidiary Taiwan Life Insurance Co (台灣人壽) also made significant income contributions from selling assets, CTBC Financial said.
Among the 14 financial holding companies, only Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金) was in the red last month as the company posted a net loss of NT$730 million due to lower investment gains at its subsidiary Taishin Venture Capital Investment Co (台新創投).
Overall, the 14 financial holding companies posted a combined net profit of NT$339.44 billion in the first nine months of the year, representing an 8.3 percent increase from a year earlier, as the sector emerged from COVID-19 pandemic insurance claims.
The figures might exceed the NT$400 billion mark this year in the absence of black swan events, analysts said.
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data center projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically made artificial intelligence (AI) chips, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities have ordered such data centers that are less than 30 percent complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage would be decided on a case-by-case basis, the sources said. The move could represent one of China’s most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a
RSS