Taiwan said it will have to wait until after the March presidential election to arrange a US sale of a 3-percent stake in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC,
"It will still take some time to select an investment bank," said James Ho, deputy executive secretary of the Cabinet's Development Fund, responding to a Chinese-language newspaper report that said the sale had been canceled. "We won't be able to sell the stake before the election."
The planned sale of 640 million shares, worth NT$67.50 each based on Friday's closing price, would cut the government's stake in TSMC to 4.6 percent from 7.7 percent, opposition lawmaker Thomas Lee (
The Development Fund last year developed a plan to sell the shares for NT$71.50 each, a 5.6 percent premium, Lee said. The government needs the money to help plug a budget deficit. Taiwan, which is facing its biggest-ever budget deficit of NT$257.4 billion this year, needs to keep annual borrowing at less than the limit of 15 percent of expenses.
Premier Yu Shyi-kun on Nov. 24 urged opposition parties, which have a majority in the legislature, to set aside pre-election wrangling and pass a separate NT$500 billion budget appropriation to fund public works and boost the economy.
The government pared its stake in TSMC from 9.56 percent in July of last year, raising US$822 million, after having sold a 1.5-percent stake in the company for US$871 million in 2002.
The chipmaker's shares would be sold in the form of American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), with five ordinary shares packaged as one ADR.
ADRs of some Taiwanese companies trade at premiums over the underlying shares because the government restricts overseas investment in shares sold in the domestic market.
The government is planning more asset sales to finance spending as President Chen Shui-bian (
The government has increased spending on social welfare at the expense of public works projects, Lee said.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in