Market insiders yesterday spoke in support of Fubon Financial Holding Co (
They also disagreed with City Councilor Lee Wen-ying (
"Those were a lot of silly political accusations," Goldman Sachs' Hong Kong-based spokesperson Eddie Naylor said yesterday. "Fubon Financial went through very extensive auction processes, which we managed and were in line with international practices."
"The process of the groundbreaking transaction was sophisticated and transparent, and our fee charges were in line with market levels," Naylor said.
Josephine Juan (阮淑祥), a manager at Taiwan Ratings Corp (中華信評) -- the local arm of Standard & Poor's -- also praised the merger, saying Fubon was the best merger partner and offered the highest market price for TaipeiBank.
Citing a rating agency report, Juan said that both Fubon Commercial Bank (
After the merger that incorporated TaipeiBank, parent Fubon Financial still maintained a long-term outlook rating of "AA-," she said.
Unless investigators found any irregularities in the bidding process, the prices offered by bidders would never match the bank's book price, Juan added.
On Saturday, former TaipeiBank president Liao Cheng-ching (廖正井) argued that the bank, whose assets stood at NT654.3 billion before the merger, shouldn't have been sold to smaller rival Fubon Financial, whose stand-alone assets were NT$122 billion.
But Fubon Financial vice chairman Daniel Tsai (
Before the merger, Fubon Financial's net assets stood at NT$101.2 billion, far greater than TaipeiBank's net assets of NT$45.6 billion, according to Tsai.
Endorsing Tsai's view, Chou Tien-chen (
"When it comes to share-swap deals, net assets will truly reflect the value of companies across all sectors," Chou added.
Minister of Finance Lin Chuan (林全) yesterday told the legislature that the ministry was in no position to step into the merger deal's pricing as long as the boards of both private companies gave their approval.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
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