State-run Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp (TTL,台灣菸酒公司) yesterday installed a business professor and the head of a farmer's bank to take on the mammoth task of competing in Taiwan's open markets.
The new two-man team -- Hwang Ing-san (
Neither has much real market experience, with Hwang serving a stint in the electronics field and Lai reigning over a state-run bank that as of June had a 13.9 percent non-performing loan ratio.
A confident Hwang boasted that he has a plan to increase the company's profit by 20 percent in his first year.
His three-point strategy is to clear out the corporation's NT$17 billion inventory, extend the operating hours of the company's outlet stores in line with market standards, and begin producing OEM liquor for foreign businesses.
The 61-year-old Hwang is a native of Changhua County and has a doctorate in business management from National Cheng Chi University.
He has 32 years' experience teaching and 20 years' overlapping experience in the private sector.
Hwang was formally sworn in yesterday, taking over the chairmanship from acting TTL chairman, Vice Minister of Finance Sam Wang (
As the head of a government-controlled business with an estimated NT$64 billion in annual revenue, NT$121 billion in assets and 7,800 employees, Hwang vowed to improve profit margins and sales volumes in the competitive liquor and tobacco market by restructuring of the company.
Questioned over the company's inability to manufacture to match market demand, Hwang said that the TTL's NT$17 million inventory needed to be sold off as soon as possible.
As for operating hours, TTL outlets close at 3pm every day, hurting the competitiveness of the corporation.
Hwang vowed to extend operating hours -- "which are currently the same as for banks" -- for an undisclosed period of time.
In addition, TTL also plans to expand its international market by utilizing its manufacturing ability to custom-made liquor for foreign businesses who target other international markets rather than Taiwan.
Hwang said that, so far, the company has no plan to enter the China market because of the stronghold counterfeit liquor and tobacco has in the market there.
"We will enter the market only when we clearly understand the situation and then we will take advantage of the distribution channels of other international corporations to take a share in China's market," he said.
According to Hwang, privatization should stay on schedule for 2004 and the EPS will be set at NT$1.5.
He promised not to lay off any workers in the company's move toward privatization.
"If we can make our profit targets, it won't be necessary for us to lay off employees," he said.
"We have some 7,000 employees who will play a role as marketers to help us to achieve our goals," he said.
At the ceremony, Hwang said the main reason he decided to take up the position was because he owed it to the government.
"When I was young, I was too poor to study at a university. The government gave me a three-year scholarship and helped me with my college education," said a teary-eyed Hwang.
Hwang said that he was unable to pay back the government then and now it was time for him to give something back to the government.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
NO SHORTCUTS: Asked about Elon Musk’s Terafab initiative, TSMC CEO C.C. Wei said it takes two to three years to build a fab and another one to two to ramp it up Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday raised its revenue growth forecast for this year to above 30 percent, up from the 25 percent it estimated three months earlier, citing extremely robust artificial intelligence (AI)-related chip demand. “Our customers and customers’ customers, who are mainly cloud service providers, continue to send us very positive signals and outlook,” TSMC chairman and CEO C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at an earnings conference. The company also hiked its capital expenditure for this year toward the higher end of its forecast, or US$56 billion, as it aims to step up advanced chip capacity expansions, such as
The founder of Chinese property giant Evergrande Group (恆大集團) has pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and bribery, a court said yesterday, the latest blow for what was once the country’s leading developer. Evergrande’s rise was propelled by decades of rapid urbanization and rising living standards, but in 2020, its access to credit dramatically narrowed when the government introduced curbs on excessive borrowing and speculation. The company defaulted in 2021 after struggling to repay creditors. Founder Xu Jiayin (許家印), 67, known as Hui Ka Yan in Cantonese, was reportedly held by police in 2023, with Evergrande saying he had been subjected to
Taiwan is attracting a growing number of foreign jobseekers as companies increasingly recruit overseas talent to ease labor shortages and expand global reach, recruitment platform 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said yesterday. More than 40,000 foreign nationals searched for jobs in Taiwan through the platform last year, a 28 percent increase from a year earlier, the company said. Malaysians accounted for the largest share of overseas jobseekers at 12.2 percent, followed by Indonesians at 11.9 percent and Vietnamese at 10.8 percent. Indonesian applicants surged more than 50 percent year-on-year, while Vietnamese jobseekers rose by more than 30 percent. Applicants from the
RSS