KGI financial Holdings (“KGI”) today (9) announced its unaudited financial result for March. The company reported a net profit after tax of NT$1.5888 billion for the month, bringing Its net profit after-tax for the first quarter of this year reached NT$8.706 billion, a 6% year-on-year increase, with EPS of NT$0.52.
KGI pointed out that the capital market trend continued to be weak in March, and the trading volume also shrank compared with February. The life insurance, banking, and securities businesses of the major subsidiaries of KGI still maintained profitable performance. KGI Life Insurance's after-tax profit in March reported NT$1.176 billion, and the after-tax profit in the first quarter of this year reached NT$6.176 billion, an increase of about 20% compared with the same period last year. KGI Life sales momentum remained strong in March, with first-year premiums growing by more than 70% year-on-year. Although foreign exchange gains were realized due to NT dollar depreciation, under the new foreign exchange reserve regime, KGI Life Insurance was require to allocate all FX gains into reserves. This led to over NT$6 billion in reserves being set aside in March, NT$2.5-3 billion more than under the previous rules. While this reduced short-term profits, it significantly enhances FS hedging flexibility and mitigates future currency fluctuation risks
The Taiwan stock market fell in price and shrank in volume in March, which affected KGI Securities' profit performance slightly compared with the previous month. However, its main businesses including brokerage, wealth management, derivative financial products, bonds and overseas reinvestment still maintained stable profits, with a profit of NT$501 million after tax in March and a profit of NT$1.843 billion after tax in the first quarter of this year. KGI Bank's core income such as interest and fee income in March all made stable contributions, and the overall credit scale continued to grow. The monthly profit after tax was NT$477 million, and the profit after tax in the first quarter of this year reached NT$1.706 billion, an increase of 16% over the same period last year. CDIB was affected by the fluctuations in the capital market and the performance of its investment position evaluation. It suffered a loss of NT$333 million after tax in March and a loss of NT$17 million after tax in the first quarter of this year.
KGI stated that the actual impact of the Trump administration's tariff policy remains to be seen, but investors are concerned about the deterioration of global relations, a hard landing of the economy and high inflation, all of which have increased uncertainty in the recent financial market. KGI will pay attention to the overall trend of the financial market and implement risk control mechanisms, while continuing to promote the ONE KGI strategy, integrate corporate resources, strengthen group cooperation, and thus bolster KGI's long-term competitiveness.
