Suspected insider trading yesterday sent shares of Chou Chin Industrial Co (久津實業) -- maker of Bomy-brand (波蜜) vegetable and fruit juice -- down by nearly the daily limit of 7 percent, to close at NT$25 per share yesterday.
The downward pressure came after four securities houses failed to settle NT$2 billion worth of trades of the company's shares on Thursday.
The stock settlement default triggered a selling frenzy among investors yesterday. It was the largest such default since 1998.
The TAIEX lost 46 points or 1.1 percent to close at 4,350 yesterday.
Claiming to be financial viable, the company yesterday pointed the finger at vice president Wu Ming-hui (
Wu is reportedly in hiding after allegedly having embezzled NT$200 million from the company's account on Thursday.
"We suspect that Wu is behind the non-settlement incident -- an individual case of misconduct," said Orsen Hsu (許育人), special assistant to the company's chairman, Kuo Bao-fu (郭保富), at a press conference yesterday.
The company had nothing to do with the stock irregularities, Hsu said, adding that Wu had sent Kuo a tape and a fax yesterday morning, apologizing for his misconduct.
"I am deeply sorry for my greed which has caused great losses to the company and investors," the person identified as Wu said in the tape, which was played for reporters during the press conference.
Wu began working for Chou Chin in 2001.
Hsu said that "chairman Kuo is absolutely in the dark [about the settlement default] and will demand an explanation from Wu in the near future."
Although Kuo has claimed to have no knowledge of Wu's personal stock sales, he remains a board member of one of the two biggest investment firms which failed to pay up for NT$1 billion in the over NT$2 billion non-settlement deal.
Chinese-language media speculated that Kuo and the company's major shareholders joined forces to manipulate the stock market, boosting share prices from NT$18.4 in late January to a high of NT$30.9 on Thursday.
But Hsu rejected the manipulation accusation, adding that the company is operating normally.
Once the company's role in the dispute is cleared, its share prices should be able to bounce back, a market watcher said yesterday.
"If the company's fundamentals are OK, the dispute's damage to the company would only be a fluctuation in its stock price," said Dones Wang (
But even if the company is proved to have played no role in the irregularity, the alleged embezzlement by Wu still suggests that the company's internal financial management is problematic since a single employee was able withdraw two-thirds of the company's cash, Wang said.
"It still sends a negative message to the company's stock investors," he said.
Investors shunned some 130 million of the company's shares yesterday.
Among the four securities houses that failed to settle the NT$2 billion in deals, Reliance Securities Investment Trust Co (德信證券投信) yesterday paid in NT$660 million to the Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp (證交所) toward its NT$1.1 billion scheduled purchase.
The Securities and Futures Commission said yesterday the stock settlement default will be thoroughly investigated.
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Huawei Technologies Co’s (華為) latest smartphones carry a version of the advanced made-in-China processor it revealed last year, results from an independent analysis showed. This underscored the Chinese company’s ability to sustain production of the controversial chip. The Pura 70 series unveiled last week sports the Kirin 9010 processor, research firm TechInsights found during a teardown of the device. This is a newer version of the Kirin 9000s, made by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) for the Mate 60 Pro, which had alarmed officials in Washington who thought a 7-nanometer chip was beyond China’s capabilities. Huawei has enjoyed a resurgence since
purpose: Tesla’s CEO sought to meet senior Chinese officials to discuss the rollout of its ‘full self-driving’ software in China and approval to transfer data they had collected Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk arrived in Beijing yesterday on an unannounced visit, where he is expected to meet senior officials to discuss the rollout of "full self-driving" (FSD) software and permission to transfer data overseas, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Chinese state media reported that he met Premier Li Qiang (李強) in Beijing, during which Li told Musk that Tesla's development in China could be regarded as a successful example of US-China economic and trade cooperation. Musk confirmed his meeting with the premier yesterday with a post on social media platform X. "Honored to meet with Premier Li