State-run Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控) yesterday said it expects profit momentum to stay healthy this quarter after net income in the first three quarters surged almost twofold year-on-year, thanks to strong wealth management and trading operations.
Mega Financial president Hsiao Yu-mei (蕭玉美) gave the positive guidance during an online investors’ conference.
“Mega Financial saw its net income soar 98 percent to a record high of NT$27.03 billion [US$865 million] in the first three months, or earnings of NT$1.92 per share, making it the most profitable among state-run peers,” Hsiao said.
Photo courtesy of Mega Financial Holding Co
Hsiao attributed the showings to stable core banking businesses as well as advances in wealth management and trading operations.
Cross-selling and other income enhancing strategies also bore fruit, she said.
Profit momentum would be sustainable this quarter and beyond, with interest rates hovering at similar levels at home and abroad, allowing its banking subsidiary, Mega International Bank (兆豐銀行), to take further advantage of interest rate differences between Taiwan and the US to rake in currency swap income, Hsiao said.
Currency swap profit amounted to NT$11.33 billion in the first nine months, helping lift overall trading gains by 2.8 times. Mega Bank reported a 55 percent increase in net income.
Wealth management expanded 22 percent, lending support to a 7 percent increase in fee income, the company said in a statement, adding that the world gradually emerged from a bear market seen last year.
As a result, Mega Securities Co’s (兆豐證券) net income expanded almost threefold while profit at the venture capital unit exploded 37.14 times, it said.
However, the non-life insurance wing Chung Kuo Insurance Co (兆豐產險) remained a drag, incurring a net loss of NT$1.55 billion linked to ill-fated COVID-19 policies, it said.
The figure represented a sharp easing from NT$5.6 billion losses a year earlier.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in server chips, expects revenue to decline this year due to sagging demand for 5-nanometer artificial intelligence (AI) chips from a North America-based major customer, a company executive said yesterday. That would be the first contraction in revenue for Alchip as it has been enjoying strong revenue growth over the past few years, benefiting from cloud-service providers’ moves to reduce dependence on Nvidia Corp’s expensive AI chips by building their own AI accelerator by outsourcing chip design. The 5-nanometer chip was supposed to be a new growth engine as the lifecycle
RSS