The government plans to change how companies should record the value of their securities holdings, such as stocks, to discourage ``window dressing'' of financial reports, a government official said.
Starting 2006, companies must report a ``fair value'' for securities, said Jong Huey-jen (
The government is studying how to define fair value, she said. The rules now require companies to report the purchase price or market price, whichever is lower.
Under current practice, the value of securities disclosed in earnings reports is based on the closing price at the end of the earnings period.
Jose Lee, a deputy manager at the First Taisec Securities Inc (
``We still need to wait and see how well it works, as it's unclear how fair value will be defined,'' he said.
One possibility is using the average price during an entire earnings period, Lee said. That would make it more expensive for shareholders to keep their stocks up.
Standard & Poor's Ratings Services on Monday said there was a "crisis of confidence" in the quality of financial reporting by many companies following Procomp Informatics Ltd's (博達科技) default on a corporate bond last month.
"Other than a small number of companies that are subject to international reporting standards, few companies have been active in driving corporate governance forward," John Bailey, director of S&P's corporate ratings, said in a statement.
"It should come as no surprise if further reports emerge of Taiwan companies in financial difficulty," he said.
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