Former president of TaipeiBank and incumbent Taoyuan County Deputy Commissioner Liao Cheng-ching (
Liao said that the merger only profited Fubon Financial Holding Co, while TaipeiBank was sacrificed by the city government.
"Why did Taipei City Government sell TaipeiBank, which has total assets of about NT$600 billion, to Fubon Commercial Bank, which has assets of only about NT$100 billion?" Liao said. "In financial circles, this is incredible."
Liao said that if Ma could only raise NT$13 billion by selling the city government's Fubon's stocks back to Fubon, then it means that the city government will lose hundreds of billions of NT dollars in the merger of the two financial organizations.
He also said that TaipeiBank's image and profit had been promoted by the sale of the Public Welfare Lottery in the last two years.
"It should have been TaipeiBank who took over Fubon, rather than the current situation," Liao said.
DPP city councilors Wang Shih-chien (
"But after the merger, TaipeiBank's shares fell to only 14 percent of the price they held before the merger," Wang said. "The city government's decision to sell its stocks was akin to killing the golden goose," Wang said.
"Ma favored Fubon first and then sold the stock at too low a price, which leads us to believe that there were some shady connections or insider dealings going on," Wang said.
Although Ma said the city government had recruited financial services company Goldman Sachs to carry out professional evaluation of the merger, Liao said that the process should have been open to the public, like the Ministry of Finance's sale of its International Commercial Bank of China stocks, to allow public bidding.
Liao also said that if Ma wanted to raise money for municipal projects by selling the stocks, then "he should sell them at the best price."
Liao said that each TaipeiBank share could have been sold for NT$50 and not NT$33, which is the price the city government claimed it received for the shares.
Ma responded by saying that the former TaipeiBank head had misread the information on the merger deal.
Liao, however, rebutted the Taipei mayor's accusation and told Ma to go back and check his facts.
The city government will hold a press conference this morning on the merger.
Meanwhile, Vice President Annette Lu (
"This shows the change brought by the rotation of political parties," she said. "People won't let injustices happen like before."
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