Yuanta Financial Holding gives NT$200 million to charities

Yuanta is one of the financial groups found to have connections with scams arising from the second phase financial reforms pushed by former President Chen Shui-bian while he was in office.

Prosecutors have gathered evidences for the wheeling and dealing related to former first lady Wu Shu-chen and Chen as well as their son and daughter-in-law who were indicted for corruption and money laundering.

Ma Wei-chien, president of Yuanta Financial, and his brother Ma Wei-chen, chief operating officer of the same group, as well as Tu Li-chuang, chairwoman of the group’s Yuanta Securities, decided to give their one year’s salaries plus other compensation like their 2008 bonus back to the company.

They said the action was to demonstrate their remorse and apology to the public, colleagues and shareholders of firms in the Yuanta Group. The Ma brothers were found to have given travelers checks worth US$180,000 as wedding gift to former President Chen’s son.

Tu Li-ping, a Yuanta Securities board director, brought NT$200 million to Chen’s wife at the presidential residence.

Tu’s lawyer also revealed to the press his client, together with President Chen’s brother-in-law and a couple of helpers, had NT$740 million transferred from a bank to the safety deposit vault at Yuanta.

While the investigation continues, Yuanta decided to donate NT$100 million to the Taiwan United Way, a joint fund-raising organization for charities, and an additional NT$100 million to the National Taiwan University Hospital, the Tzu Chi Hospital as well a couple of social welfare organizations.

As of the end of November, Yuanta Financial still maintained a profit of NT$4.1 billion.

Investigating prosecutors are still probing if the money dealings with the former first family were connected to the acquisitions and mergers carried out by Yuanta in recent years. Former President Chen insisted that he knew nothing about the money dealings.

But Chen had pushed ahead a policy of quickly reducing the number of financial holding firms by half, which was seen to have created a leeway for financiers to compete with each other in gaining favors from Chen’s family in order to complete their multibillion dollar merger deals.

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