Limit on GDRs scrapped
The government is scrapping a rule preventing investors from converting global depositary receipts (GDRs) into the underlying shares for three months after the securities are listed, the Securities and Futures Commission said yesterday.
The rule change takes effect immediately, according to the commission.
GDRs are a negotiable certificate held in the bank of one country representing a specific number of shares of a stock traded on an exchange of another country.
The rule change may attract investors seeking to profit from the difference between the stock price in Taiwan and overseas.
State-owned firms' profits up
The pre-tax profits of all state-own companies for the first half of the year are NT$12.5 billion, an increase of NT$1.53 billion compared to the same period last year, the Ministry of Economic Affairs announced on Wednesday.
Among 10 state-run firms, Taiwan Power Co (台電) was the most profitable, raking in NT$5.68 billion in pre-tax profits, an increase of NT$4.63 billion from a goal set by the government for the year.
Chinese Petroleum Corp (中油) came in second with NT$5.92 billion, followed by the Tang End Iron Works Co (唐榮公司), which gained NT$1.23 billion.
Taiwan Sugar Corp 台糖) lost NT$960 million and the Aerospace Industrial Development Corp (漢翔公司) had a deficit of NT$270 million, the ministry press release said.
Discount offered on Chunghwa
The government plans to offer a 2 percent discount to overseas investors in today's sale of a 13.8 percent stake in Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), a Chinese-language newspaper reported, without citing the source of its information.
The government plans to raise about US$2 billion, bundling 1.11 billion shares, or an 11.5 percent stake, into depositary receipts for listing on the New York Stock Exchange, an official at the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said on Tuesday.
It may sell another 220 million shares, or a 2.3 percent stake, pending demand, the official said.
Fubon Financial profit soars
Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), a Taipei-based lender that's 10 percent-owned by Citigroup Inc, said first-half net income rose 79 percent as lending income countered a "poor" performance from its brokerage business.
Fubon Financial had net income of NT$9.03 billion (US$262 million) in the six months to June 30, up from NT$5.04 billion in the year-earlier period, it said in a statement.
"Fubon will continue to see its banking units doing better than the others, helping make up for the poor performance of its securities businesses,'' said Nora Hou, a banking analyst at ING Groep NV in Taipei.
``Fubon is expected to achieve its earnings target this year,'' she said.
University builds mini car
Southern Taiwan University of Technology announced yesterday that it has developed a two-seat, 157-cc mini car, with a maximum speed of 50kph.
Kuo Tsung-yuan (郭聰源), who heads the research and development of the mini car, said the 2.4m car has a weight of between 220kg to 250kg. He said the idea of developing the car sprang from considerations of conserving energy, reducing pollution and addressing the deficiencies of electric cars.
NT dollar dips
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday fell NT$0.010 against its US counterpart to close at NT$34.420 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$453 million.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained