Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (
Chunghwa Picture will become a pure thin-film-transistor (TFT) liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panel manufacturer, after spinning off its plasma-display-panel (PDP) and cathode-ray-tube (CRT) manufacturing arms, said James Wu (
Chunghwa Picture established Grand Cathay Optronics Co (
Wu said Chunghwa Picture will soon spin off Grand Cathay and plans to sell more than 50 percent in the company later to three or four strategic investors, mainly local home-appliance makers, to share the massive capital expenditures, Wu said.
In addition to the increase in capital, the partnership with the strategic investors will also ensure stable demand for PDP panels as the partners will use them in their products, he added.
"The separation will speed up the expansion of our PDP business, but perhaps not until next year," Wu said.
Wu declined to say who the partners might be. But he said Grand Cathay was scheduled to launch an initial public offering in early 2006 with an initial capitalization of roughly NT$6 billion.
Wu told the Taipei Times previously that Sampo Corp (
Chunghwa Picture also announced yesterday that it was letting the fully-owned CRT manufacturing unit in China, CPTF Optronics Co (華映光電), to take full control of the CRT business.
CPTF Optronics is set to issue 1 billion shares in its debut on the Shanghai stock exchange sometime during the third quarter this year, according to Wu.
The timetable was set in light of Zhejiang King Refrigeration Industry Co's (
Chunghwa Picture shares inched up 0.34 percent to close at NT$14.70 on the TAIEX yesterday, suggesting that investors did not regard the spin-off announcement as significant, analysts said.
"But in the long run, Chunghwa Picture will be able to boost its competitiveness as the regrouping will provide a healthier expansion of its PDP and CRT divisions," said Roger Yu (
Chunghwa Picture, which spent most of its money on the capital-intensive TFT-LCD section, is expected to enjoy stable growth in PDP shipments through the joint venture, Yu said.
Giving an upbeat outlook for the TFT-LCD industry, Yu predicted that Chunghwa Picture will be able to earn NT$12 billion, or NT$2 per share, in pre-tax profits this year.
The forecast is more optimistic than the company's cautious projection for the year of NT$1.25 earnings per share. The company expected to earn NT$0.17 a share last year.
But Sean Wu (
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