■BANKING
Fortis expects US$29bn loss
Belgian bank Fortis said on Sunday it “expects” to report a record loss of 22.5 billion euros (US$29 billion) for last year, when the world financial crisis drove it to be nationalized and sold off. “That means there is no room for the payment of a dividend at the moment,” Fortis Holding said in a statement. It said it would publish full results for last year on March 31. Fortis Holding was formed last year when the damage wrought by the US-born international credit crisis forced it to be split up, with the Belgian and Dutch states taking control of its operations in those two countries. Belgium has since been negotiating to sell Fortis’ Belgian operations to the French bank BNP Paribas.
■BANKING
Pension funds to sue RBS
British pension funds are to sue Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) for compensation for “massive losses” incurred when the bank had to be bailed out and the share price collapsed, the Times reported yesterday. Two local government funds claim that RBS and former chief executive Fred Goodwin “falsely reassured” investors the bank was in good health when it was “effectively insolvent” because of bad loans, the Times said. RBS is 70 percent state-owned after taking £20 billion (US$28 billion) of government funds as it struggled to cope with the global financial crisis. Last month it posted Britain’s biggest ever corporate loss. The Times reported that the two funds had hired Cherie Blair, the lawyer wife of former British prime minister Tony Blair who works under the name Cherie Booth, to file the lawsuit in a New York court.
■BANKING
No need for bailout: HSBC
HSBC’s finance chief said the banking giant would not require a British government bailout even if economic conditions in Britain or the US worsen, the South China Morning Post said in a report yesterday. Douglas Flint, the chief financial officer of HSBC holdings, said the company’s recently announced rights issue would provide more than enough capital, the report said. “The US$17.7 billion we are raising seemed to be an amount that made us extremely robust in any set of circumstances we could foresee,” the Post quoted him as saying. Flint said HSBC would not have to follow Lloyds TSB and Royal Bank of Scotland into taxpayer-funded bailouts. “We are in a totally different position. We were one of the few banks in the world that were profitable last year. It is unthinkable,” he told the paper.
■INTERNET
Bebo offers more languages
Social networking Web site Bebo yesterday announced the launch of five new European-language versions, its first major expansion outside the English-speaking world. Owned by America Online, Bebo claims to have more than 22 million users worldwide, almost half of them in Britain. Until now Bebo was available only in English and in Polish, compared with the 40 language versions offered by market leader Facebook. Users can now choose French, German, Italian, Spanish or Dutch. “We think there are lot of opportunities in the Western European market, both for user potential and for monetization,” Bebo international vice president Nicole Vanderbildt said. “International expansion is a key part of our growth strategy,” she said, adding that Bebo had “very ambitious plans” for the European market. Once a niche for teenagers and technophiles, social networking has exploded into the mainstream, with industry research suggesting more people logged on to membership community Web sites than e-mail services in December.
UPDATED (3:40pm): A suspected gas explosion at a shopping mall in Taichung this morning has killed four people and injured 20 others, as emergency responders continue to investigate. The explosion occurred on the 12th floor of the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi in Situn District (西屯) at 11:33am. One person was declared dead at the scene, while three people were declared deceased later after receiving emergency treatment. Another 20 people sustained major or minor injuries. The Taichung Fire Bureau said it received a report of the explosion at 11:33am and sent rescuers to respond. The cause of the explosion is still under investigation, it said. The National Fire
ACCOUNTABILITY: The incident, which occured at a Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store in Taichung, was allegedly caused by a gas explosion on the 12th floor Shin Kong Group (新光集團) president Richard Wu (吳昕陽) yesterday said the company would take responsibility for an apparent gas explosion that resulted in four deaths and 26 injuries at Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Zhonggang Store in Taichung yesterday. The Taichung Fire Bureau at 11:33am yesterday received a report saying that people were injured after an explosion at the department store on Section 3 of Taiwan Boulevard in Taichung’s Situn District (西屯). It sent 56 ambulances and 136 paramedics to the site, with the people injured sent to Cheng Ching Hospital’s Chung Kang Branch, Wuri Lin Shin Hospital, Taichung Veterans General Hospital or Chung
ALL-IN-ONE: A company in Tainan and another in New Taipei City offer tours to China during which Taiwanese can apply for a Chinese ID card, the source said The National Immigration Agency and national security authorities have identified at least five companies that help Taiwanese apply for Chinese identification cards while traveling in China, a source said yesterday. The issue has garnered attention in the past few months after YouTuber “Pa Chiung” (八炯) said that there are companies in Taiwan that help Taiwanese apply for Chinese documents. Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) last week said that three to five public relations firms in southern and northern Taiwan have allegedly assisted Taiwanese in applying for Chinese ID cards and were under investigation for potential contraventions of the Act Governing
‘LAWFUL USE’: The last time a US warship transited the Taiwan Strait was on Oct. 20 last year, and this week’s transit is the first of US President Donald Trump’s second term Two US military vessels transited the Taiwan Strait from Sunday through early yesterday, the Ministry of National Defense said in a statement, the first such mission since US President Donald Trump took office last month. The two vessels sailed south through the Strait, the ministry said, adding that it closely monitored nearby airspace and waters at the time and observed nothing unusual. The ministry did not name the two vessels, but the US Navy identified them as the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Ralph Johnson and the Pathfinder-class survey ship USNS Bowditch. The ships carried out a north-to-south transit from