Announcement of the bidding outcome was postponed from March 30 to April 11. Unique's tender beat those of four rival companies: Era Communications Co., Hung Pang Construction Co., Want Want Group and Dafeng TV Ltd. All five qualified to bid after review by the Executive Yuan, but Dafeng withdrew its tender April 10 in consideration of overseas investment in its stock, the Chinese-language Commercial Times reported April 11, explaining that this could violate laws stipulating that domestic mass media should not be run by foreign operators.
Unique's offer of US$0.73 for each of the more than 72 million shares was slightly higher than the other bids--which ranged from US$0.68 to US$0.697--and almost double the base price of US$0.4.
The shares were part of the 47.39 percent of TTV stock owned by the government. According to the Department of Broadcasting Affairs of the Government Information Office, the agency that publishes this newspaper, the government held two blocks of TTV stock. Two state-run banks, the Bank of Taiwan and Land Bank of Taiwan, owned 21.62 percent of TTV shares, while the 25.77 percent acquired by Unique was held by four other banks by means of government investment: the First Commercial Bank, Hua Nan Commercial Bank, Chang Hwa Bank and Taiwan Cooperative Bank.
The Executive Yuan had been preparing to sell the government-owned stock for more than one year in accordance with an act passed by lawmakers in January 2006 that aimed to preclude governmental and political control of local media and thus maintain neutrality of reporting and secure freedom of speech, the GIO Web site indicated.
The stock sale has led to a number of controversies during the past month. Former TTV Chairman Lai Kuo-chou, who was also the representative of government-owned shareholders, was accused of acquiring TTV stock owned by Japanese investors in March. Land Bank Vice President Yang Chao said Lai's purchase of shareholders' stock would affect the transparency and fairness of the release of government-owned shares, the Taipei-based Central News Agency reported March 19. The Executive Yuan found that Lai had accepted the 4.8 percent of TTV stock owned by Fuji Television Network Inc., and it appointed National Chengchi University Professor Chen Ching-ho to take over Lai's position March 22.
Lai and Sumio Hasegawa, assistant to Fuji's chairman, responded by holding a press conference March 25 at which they accused GIO Minister Cheng Wen-tsang of trying in January to persuade Fuji to sell its TTV stock to the Liberty Times Group, which cooperated with the Hung Pang bid. The Executive Yuan confirmed that Cheng had dinner with executives from Fuji and Liberty Times, which Vice Premier Tsai Ing-wen said was inappropriate since Cheng was a member of the ad hoc committee in charge of reviewing the stock release, CNA reported April 3. Although Cheng's account of the dinner suggested translation between different languages might have given the guests different understandings of the dinner's purpose and content of their conversations, Cheng's resignation from the GIO post was approved by Premier Su Tseng-chang April 3.
The bidding process continued despite these problems and was completed when Unique signed a document of equity transfer with the shareholders April 13. Unique International Technology is a subsidiary of the Unique Group, which owns a publishing house and a TV station operating two channels. "Viewers can expect an additional six channels after we've combined our manpower and resources from the two TV stations that the group now owns. We are expecting a bigger market for our channels," an April 12 Taipei Times report quoted Unique Deputy General Manager Deng Mei-hua as saying.
The remaining state-owned TTV stock, around 60 million shares in total, was scheduled for June and would be open for public buyers at US$0.36 per share, Shauna Huang of the GIO said April 18.
Write to Annie Huang at shihyin@mail.gio.gov.tw