Taiwan Financial Holding Instructed to Take Over Kuo Hua Life

Taipei, March 14, 2011 (CENS)--The Taiwan Cabinet has instructed Taiwan Financial Holding Co., a government-run financial holding company, to take over the financially-troubled Kuo Hua Life Insurance Co., with the merger expected to be completed as early as in the first half of this year.

Insiders say that Taiwan Financial has a life insurance arm—BankTaiwan Life Insurance Co. whose businesses can be complementary with those of Kuo Hua after the merger, especially when Kuo Hua has over 4,000 salespersons selling mainly traditional policies, with BankTaiwan Life focusing on investment-linked policies.

BankTaiwan Life has only a 3.36% share of Taiwan's insurance market but hopes to expand rapidly after taking over Kuo Hua, which has NT$270 billion (US$8.71 billion) in assets and NT$60 billion (US$1.94 billion) of debt.

Taiwan Financial led Taiwan's financial holding companies in terms of assets but was outpaced by Cathay Financial last year whose assets totaled NT$4.1 trillion (US$132.26 billion) at the end of the year. However Taiwan Financial's net worth has so far led the industry with value totaling NT$253.7 billion (US$8.18 billion).