Hua Nan Investment Trust Co (華南永昌投信), the asset management arm of Hua Nan Financial Holdings Co (華南金控), has written off deferred tax assets linked to its exposure to the long-running Private Equity Management Group (PEM) fraud case, citing little chance of recovery.
The move pushed the unit’s accumulated losses to NT$156 million (US$5.13 million) as of Aug. 31, exceeding half of its paid-in capital, Hua Nan Financial said earlier this week.
Local financial regulations stipulate that the breach disqualifies the company from issuing new funds unless it receives a fresh capital injection.
Photo: Chen Mei-ying, Taipei Times
The losses stem from Hua Nan Investment Trust’s earlier involvement in the PEM investment scandal, in which Taiwanese investors lost hundreds of millions of New Taiwan dollars.
The case, dubbed “Taiwan’s Madoff scandal,” dates to 2006 and 2007, when Taiwanese-American financier Danny Pang (彭日成) marketed structured notes in Taiwan, promising principal protection and annual returns of 6 to 8 percent.
The products were distributed through several local and foreign financial institutions, including Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行), Standard Chartered Bank, Taichung Commercial Bank Co (台中商銀), Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行) and Hua Nan Investment Trust.
To address the erosion of capital, Hua Nan Financial said that it plans to carry out a capital reduction followed by a capital injection to boost the subsidiary’s net asset value.
The process is expected to be completed by the end of this year, it said.
The recapitalization would ensure the trust’s net worth returns to NT$10 per share, the parent company said, adding that the one-off losses would not affect the subsidiary’s operations or its business development.
CHIP RACE: Three years of overbroad export controls drove foreign competitors to pursue their own AI chips, and ‘cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,’ Nvidia said China has figured out the US strategy for allowing it to buy Nvidia Corp’s H200s and is rejecting the artificial intelligence (AI) chip in favor of domestically developed semiconductors, White House AI adviser David Sacks said, citing news reports. US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would allow shipments of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, part of an administration effort backed by Sacks to challenge Chinese tech champions such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) by bringing US competition to their home market. On Friday, Sacks signaled that he was uncertain about whether that approach would work. “They’re rejecting our chips,” Sacks
Taiwan’s exports soared 56 percent year-on-year to an all-time high of US$64.05 billion last month, propelled by surging global demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing and cloud service infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) called the figure an unexpected upside surprise, citing a wave of technology orders from overseas customers alongside the usual year-end shopping season for technology products. Growth is likely to remain strong this month, she said, projecting a 40 percent to 45 percent expansion on an annual basis. The outperformance could prompt the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and
NATIONAL SECURITY: Intel’s testing of ACM tools despite US government control ‘highlights egregious gaps in US technology protection policies,’ a former official said Chipmaker Intel Corp has tested chipmaking tools this year from a toolmaker with deep roots in China and two overseas units that were targeted by US sanctions, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Intel, which fended off calls for its CEO’s resignation from US President Donald Trump in August over his alleged ties to China, got the tools from ACM Research Inc, a Fremont, California-based producer of chipmaking equipment. Two of ACM’s units, based in Shanghai and South Korea, were among a number of firms barred last year from receiving US technology over claims they have
BARRIERS: Gudeng’s chairman said it was unlikely that the US could replicate Taiwan’s science parks in Arizona, given its strict immigration policies and cultural differences Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登), which supplies wafer pods to the world’s major semiconductor firms, yesterday said it is in no rush to set up production in the US due to high costs. The company supplies its customers through a warehouse in Arizona jointly operated by TSS Holdings Ltd (德鑫控股), a joint holding of Gudeng and 17 Taiwanese firms in the semiconductor supply chain, including specialty plastic compounds producer Nytex Composites Co (耐特) and automated material handling system supplier Symtek Automation Asia Co (迅得). While the company has long been exploring the feasibility of setting up production in the US to address
RSS