Shipping firm takes 22.5% stake in Taiwan's state reinsurer

TAIWAN's second biggest shipping firm has bought a 22.5% stake in Central Reinsurance (CR) from the country's government. The sell off of 23.1% of Central Reinsurance by Taiwan's finance ministry brought it T$872m and cut its holding to 48%, which officially makes CR a private company. Aside from the T$850m deal with Evergreen Marine, Taiwan's finance ministry would not disclose the identity of the other buyers yesterday. Evergreen cited CR's stable profits as the major attraction for its purchase. In the 1980s Taiwan said it would privatise 47 state firms by 2001. But in recent years, the programme has suffered setbacks because of weak stock markets and so far only 21, including CR, have reduced state ownership to less than half and transferred to the private sector.