Prudential Corp Plc, Britain's largest insurer, said it will pay up to NT$3.35 billion for control of ChinFon Life Insurance Co (
Prudential said it will pay NT$1.1 billion for a 57.8 percent stake in the company. It will also pay as much as NT$2.24 billion to buy new shares that ChinFon plans to offer to its shareholders next month.
The Ministry of Finance has told ChinFon, which lost NT$2.26 billion last year, that it needs to raise NT$2.8 billion by Oct. 14 as part of a recapitalization plan to strengthen its finances and offset last year's losses.
Prudential's bid comes two months after it scrapped plans to pay NT3.2 billion for 87 percent of Hung Fu Life Insurance.
After buying ChinFon, Prudential is likely to withdraw an earlier application for its own life insurance license in Taiwan.
"Prudential will have an instant access to Taiwan's life insurance market," said Gary Lu, a ChinFon spokesman.
Prudential will compete with 31 other life insurance companies in Taiwan, including 15 foreign firms. Life insurers in Taiwan collected NT$48.9 billion in premiums last year, a 15.8 percent increase from a year earlier.
The joint venture will give Prudential "a strong presence in this rapidly growing market," Prudential Chief Executive Mark Tucker said in a statement.
Established in 1960 as the first privately owned life insurer in Taiwan, ChinFon Life is 75 percent-owned by the ChinFon Group, which also controls listed motorcycle maker Sanyang Industrial Co Ltd and unlisted ChinFon Commercial Bank.
Prudential said ChinFon has more than 250,000 customers and posts annual premiums of NT$2.6 billion. At the end of last year, it had total assets of NT$12.4 billion.
ChinFon Life said it has 2,660 employees, including 2,200 agents.
The government is expected to approve Prudential's acquisition, said Chen Kai-yuan, section chief of the ministry's insurance department. "A merger with one of the world's leading insurers will help ChinFon," he said
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
RSS