Insurer proposes 'reasonable' fee for Nvidia HQ site: Taipei official

Taipei, Nov. 5 (CNA) Shin Kong Life Insurance has proposed a "reasonable" fee for terminating the contract for a plot of land chipmaker Nvidia Corp. is eyeing for its Taiwan headquarters, Deputy Mayor Lee Shu-chuan (李四川) said Wednesday.

Lee said the city had received an official document from the insurer proposing that the Taipei City government pay it NT$4.47 billion (US$144.52 million) to terminate the contract, a price he said was reasonable.

Subtracting the NT$3.44 billion the insurer had already paid to the government for the land rights and rent, the difference of NT$1.04 billion was not far from the compensation of NT$800 million that the city had estimated, Lee said.

The gap in the estimates of reasonable compensation arose from NT$100 million in taxes that Shin Kong Life paid to the central government and different approaches to calculating capital costs, Lee said.

The city and the insurer will now both hire accountants to review the various proposals, Lee said, expressing the hope that the amount can be finalized and the termination agreement signed by Friday.

Also on Wednesday, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) told the Taipei City Council that the termination fee will not be paid at the public's expense, but passed on to Nvidia as a rights fee.

Taipei Department of Land Administration Director Wang Rui-yun (王瑞雲) noted that Nvidia said it was willing to assume the extra costs to establish its headquarters on the land.

The city and the insurer have been at odds over the plot of land in the Beitou Shilin Tech Park ever since Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) announced in May that the company had chosen the site for its Taiwan headquarters.

Shin Kong Life has held the land's surface rights since 2021, after winning a public tender, but had yet to develop the land.

The city objected to allowing the insurer to directly transfer the land rights to Nvidia, citing concerns over potential profiteering. Instead, it requested Shin Kong Life to agree to a mutual contract termination.

The insurer argued, however, that terminating the contract could be seen as a breach of trust by its board of directors because it would damage the company's future benefits.

Still, Shin Kong Life announced on Oct. 22 its willingness to terminate the land contract with Taipei, contingent upon the reimbursement of the costs it had incurred related to the land.