Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控) and Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控) yesterday finalized their long-anticipated merger, creating TS Financial Holding Co (台新新光金控), whose combined assets make it the fourth-largest financial holding company in Taiwan.
The new entity, with NT$8.3 trillion (US$282.3 billion) in assets, more than 10 million clients and over 1 million shareholders, aims to become a globally competitive financial group, chairman Thomas Wu (吳東亮) said at a celebration event in Taipei.
“This merger is not just about scale — it is about creating a new growth engine for Taiwan’s financial sector,” Wu said, adding that TS Financial would pursue a “multi-engine” model integrating banking, insurance, asset management and securities to drive balanced development.
Photo: CNA
While the legal merger takes effect immediately, operational integration across subsidiaries is expected to take up to a year, as the group works toward building a unified platform.
The merger marks Taiwan’s largest-ever friendly acquisition in the financial sector by transaction value, and signals a broader shift toward consolidation and scale.
TS Financial now controls 557 branches, 5,000 ATMs and a workforce of 32,000, and operates the most widely used digital banking platform in the nation.
Domestically, Wu said that the company plans to consolidate Taishin International Bank Co (台新銀行) and Shin Kong Commercial Bank Co (新光銀行) into the country’s largest retail banking network, in terms of the number of branches and digital user base.
In the insurance field, 60-year-old Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽) is to remain a core subsidiary, with plans to bolster its capital strength and long-term policyholder protection, Wu said.
International expansion, particularly in Asia, is a key goal, Wu said, adding that the group is exploring cross-border opportunities to align with global companies increasingly seeking partnerships with Taiwan.
Citing his role as chairman of the Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce, Wu said: “Now is the best time for Taiwanese firms to step out and compete internationally. Taiwan’s financial sector must achieve sufficient scale to serve as a strong and reliable backing for our businesses abroad.”
The integration process has already begun. On the asset management front, Taishin Securities Investment Trust Co (台新投信) yesterday approved a share swap to absorb Shin Kong Investment Trust Co (新光投信), marking the first subsidiary consolidation.
Taishin Trust plans to issue 53.37 million new shares to its parent company in exchange for Shin Kong Trust shares, at a ratio of 1.3342 Taishin shares for each Shin Kong share — pending regulatory approval.
Despite optimism about long-term synergies, investors took a cautious stance. Shares of TS Financial dropped 6.3 percent to NT$16.3 yesterday on heavy volume, as the market digested the near-term integration challenges and restructuring costs.
AI BOOST: Although Taiwan’s reliance on Chinese rare earth elements is limited, it could face indirect impacts from supply issues and price volatility, an economist said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) has sharply raised its forecast for Taiwan’s economic growth this year to 5.6 percent, citing stronger-than-expected exports and investment linked to artificial intelligence (AI), as it said that the current momentum could peak soon. The acceleration of the global AI race has fueled a surge in Taiwan’s AI-related capital spending and exports of information and communications technology (ICT) products, which have been key drivers of growth this year. “We have revised our GDP forecast for Taiwan upward to 5.6 percent from 4 percent, an upgrade that mainly reflects stronger-than-expected AI-related exports and investment in the third
Mercuries Life Insurance Co (三商美邦人壽) shares surged to a seven-month high this week after local media reported that E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控) had outbid CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) in the financially strained insurer’s ongoing sale process. Shares of the mid-sized life insurer climbed 5.8 percent this week to NT$6.72, extending a nearly 18 percent rally over the past month, as investors bet on the likelihood of an impending takeover. The final round of bidding closed on Thursday, marking a critical step in the 32-year-old insurer’s search for a buyer after years of struggling to meet capital adequacy requirements. Local media reports
TECHNOLOGICAL RIVALRY: The artificial intelligence chip competition among multiple players would likely intensify over the next two years, a Quanta official said Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), which makes servers and laptops on a contract basis, yesterday said its shipments of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s GB300 chips have increased steadily since last month, should surpass those of the GB200 models this quarter. The production of GB300 servers has gone much more smoothly than that of the GB200, with shipments projected to increase sharply next month, Quanta executive vice president Mike Yang (楊麒令) said on the sidelines of a technology forum in Taipei. While orders for GB200 servers gradually decrease, the production transition between the two server models has been
ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing supplier, yesterday announced a strategic collaboration with Analog Devices Inc (ADI), coupled with the signing of a binding memorandum of understanding. Under the agreement, ASE intends to purchase 100 percent shares of Analog Devices Sdn Bhd and acquire its manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia, a press release showed. The ADI Penang facility is located in the prime industrial hub of Bayan Lepas, with an area of over 680,000 square feet, it said. In addition, the two sides intend to enter into a long-term supply agreement for ASE to
RSS