Five months ago, Chinatrust Financial Holdings has made a bid for MetLife’s Taiwan life insurance unit for USD 180 million. The Financial Supervisory Commission has recently announced it is still reviewing the planned acquisition.
Lin Tung-liang, secretary-general of the insurance bureau of the FSC, told reporters the regulator is now reviewing the “eligibility” of the major shareholders of Chinatrust.
Taiwan’s government does background check on buyers, including their nationality and funding sources, if a merger or acquisition target is a local company or a local operation.
Chinatrust Financial, which owns Chinatrust Commercial Bank Co., Taiwan’s largest credit-card issuer, has outlets in Taiwan, the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, mainland China, Hong Kong, India, Singapore and Indonesia.
Taipei, September 14, 2011 (Dow Jones)
