Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (
Chi Mei priced the five-year bonds, which don't pay interest, to yield 0.5 percent, said Simon Aird, head of Asian equity syndication at Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB), one of the sale's arrangers.
The bonds can be converted in to Chi Mei shares at NT$43.52 apiece, a 28 percent premium to the close yesterday of NT$34 a share.
The company's shares are up 33 percent this year. The TAIEX is up 19 percent.
Chi Mei's fundraising adds to signs of improvement in the US$33 billion flat-panel industry, dominated by companies in South Korea and Taiwan.
Construction of factories slowed earlier this year amid the spread of SARS. That helped curb excess supply and supported prices, market researcher DisplaySearch said last month.
The company, which had 9 percent of the global large-size flat panel market last year, raised NT$9.5 billion (US$276 million) on June 30, selling 500 million shares at NT$19 each to local investors to help finance the construction of its third flat-panel plant.
Companies such as Chi Mei, the world's fifth biggest shipper of the panels, are boosting production of screens used in televisions, computers and other electronic products as they replace bulky glass tube-based displays.
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co arranged the sale with CSFB.
The banks can sell a further US$50 million of the bonds depending on demand.
MARKET LEADERSHIP: Investors are flocking to Nvidia, drawn by the company’s long-term fundamntals, dominant position in the AI sector, and pricing and margin power Two years after Nvidia Corp made history by becoming the first chipmaker to achieve a US$1 trillion market capitalization, an even more remarkable milestone is within its grasp: becoming the first company to reach US$4 trillion. After the emergence of China’s DeepSeek (深度求索) sent the stock plunging earlier this year and stoked concerns that outlays on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure were set to slow, Nvidia shares have rallied back to a record. The company’s biggest customers remain full steam ahead on spending, much of which is flowing to its computing systems. Microsoft Corp, Meta Platforms Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc are
Luxury fashion powerhouse Prada SpA has acknowledged the ancient Indian roots of its new sandal design after the debut of the open-toe footwear sparked a furor among Indian artisans and politicians thousands of miles from the catwalk in Italy. Images from Prada’s fashion show in Milan last weekend showed models wearing leather sandals with a braided design that resembled handmade Kolhapuri slippers with designs dating back to the 12th century. A wave of criticism in the media and from lawmakers followed over the Italian brand’s lack of public acknowledgement of the Indian sandal design, which is named after a city in the
The US overtaking China as Taiwan’s top export destination could boost industrial development and wage growth, given the US is a high-income economy, an economist said yesterday. However, Taiwan still needs to diversify its export markets due to the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s administration, said Chiou Jiunn-rong (邱俊榮), an economics professor at National Central University. Taiwan’s exports soared to a record US$51.74 billion last month, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products and continued orders, with information and communication technology (ICT) and audio/video products leading all sectors. The US reclaimed its position as Taiwan’s top export market, accounting for
NEW MODELS: AI researchers are facing challenges in managing deceptive behaviors, with limited regulation and testing, as the race for advanced models intensifies The world’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models are exhibiting troubling new behaviors — lying, scheming and even threatening their creators to achieve their goals. In one particularly jarring example, under threat of being unplugged, Anthropic PBC’s latest creation, Claude 4, lashed back by blackmailing an engineer and threatening to reveal an extramarital affair. Meanwhile, ChatGPT creator OpenAI’s o1 tried to download itself onto external servers and denied it when caught red-handed. These episodes highlight a sobering reality: More than two years after ChatGPT shook the world, AI researchers still do not fully understand how their own creations work. Yet the race to
RSS