CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) would seek to maintain a 60 percent dividend payout ratio after it recorded profit of NT$72.03 billion (US$2.18 billion), or earnings per share of NT$3.64, last year, company president Rachael Kao (高麗雪) told an earnings conference in Taipei yesterday.
The board of directors at CTBC Financial would discuss the dividend policy next month, Kao said.
A proposed 60 percent payout ratio suggests a cash dividend of NT$2.18 per share.
Photo: Lee Chin-hui, Taipei Times
While uncertainty is escalating for financial markets this year, the landscape appears favorable for financial institutions, with the US Federal Reserve expected to cut interest rates in the next two quarters, which would benefit main subsidiary CTBC Bank’s (中信銀行) interest income and boost the asset value of its insurance arm, Taiwan Life Insurance Co (台灣人壽), Kao said.
Rate cuts would also help weaken the US dollar and spur loan demand, which are positive for interest income, she said, adding that the New Taiwan dollar is likely to remain volatile.
Separately, state-run Hua Nan Financial Holding Co (華南金控) said it would adopt a conservative approach to real-estate lending to support the efforts of Taiwan’s central bank’s to cool the housing market.
“Overall real-estate lending is expected to hold steady from last year, or change mildly,” Hua Nan Financial president Robert Li (李耀卿) told investors.
The conglomerate said that its flagship unit Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行) has more than NT$100 billion of pending construction loans and related mortgages.
The lender has halted new construction loan applications and sought to lower its real-estate lending from 40 percent to 39.4 percent of total loans, the conglomerate said.
Loans already approved would be disbursed in an orderly manner, with priority given to first-home buyers, owners of houses for self-occupancy and those who qualify for the government’s favorable lending terms, it said.
Hua Nan Bank is also eyeing deposit growth this year, particularly from small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as individual depositors, Hua Nan Financial said.
Taiwan’s rapidly aging population is fueling a sharp increase in homes occupied solely by elderly people, a trend that is reshaping the nation’s housing market and social fabric, real-estate brokers said yesterday. About 850,000 residences were occupied by elderly people in the first quarter, including 655,000 that housed only one resident, the Ministry of the Interior said. The figures have nearly doubled from a decade earlier, Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) said, as people aged 65 and older now make up 20.8 percent of the population. “The so-called silver tsunami represents more than just a demographic shift — it could fundamentally redefine the
Businesses across the global semiconductor supply chain are bracing themselves for disruptions from an escalating trade war, after China imposed curbs on rare earth mineral exports and the US responded with additional tariffs and restrictions on software sales to the Asian nation. China’s restrictions, the most targeted move yet to limit supplies of rare earth materials, represent the first major attempt by Beijing to exercise long-arm jurisdiction over foreign companies to target the semiconductor industry, threatening to stall the chips powering the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. They prompted US President Donald Trump on Friday to announce that he would impose an additional
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) said it expects peak season effects in the fourth quarter to continue to boost demand for passenger flights and cargo services, after reporting its second-highest-ever September sales on Monday. The carrier said it posted NT$15.88 billion (US$517 million) in consolidated sales last month, trailing only September last year’s NT$16.01 billion. Last month, CAL generated NT$8.77 billion from its passenger flights and NT$5.37 billion from cargo services, it said. In the first nine months of this year, the carrier posted NT$154.93 billion in cumulative sales, up 2.62 percent from a year earlier, marking the second-highest level for the January-September
Asian e-commerce giant Shein’s (希音) decision to set up shop in a historic Parisian department store has ruffled feathers in the fashion capital. Anger has been boiling since Shein announced last week that it would open its first permanent physical store next month at BHV Marais, an iconic building that has stood across from Paris City Hall since 1856. The move prompted some French brands to announce they would leave BHV Marais, but the department store had already been losing tenants over late payments. Aime cosmetics line cofounder Mathilde Lacombe, whose brand was among those that decided to leave following
RSS