NPL ratio falls
Banks held NT$535.6 billion (US$15.7 billion) in overdue loans at the end of last month, with the bad-loan ratio falling to 3.54 percent from 4.33 percent from Dec. 31 last year, the Financial Supervisory Commission said.
The banks had a total of NT$740.5 billion of loans classified as non-performing or under surveillance, about 4.9 percent of total lending, at June 30, the regulator said in a statement on its Web site. That compares with NT$886.6 billion or 6.1 percent of total loans at the end of December.
The non-performing loan ratio reached a record high of 8.09 percent in April 2002 after the nation's economy contracted by 2.18 percent in 2001 -- the worst recession on record.
The government is prodding banks to clean up bad loans so they are able to compete with overseas rivals. The government plans to ask domestic lenders to use international accounting standards when measuring their non-performing loans from July next year.
Taipei 101 gets more money
China Development Financial Holding Corp (中華開發金控) said it will participate in a NT$4.5 billion (US$132 million) fund-raising to complete the world's tallest building.
China Development will invest NT$880 million to buy new shares issued by Taipei Financial Center Corp (台北金融大樓公司) to put finishing touches on the 508-meter Taipei 101 building, the company said in a statement. Some of the floors are still unfinished shells.
Fubon to help Citigroup
Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) said it will help sell Citigroup Inc's US$649 million stake in the nation's fifth-largest financial services provider to overseas investors.
Fubon Financial hired Citigroup to manage the share sale, the Taipei-based company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Citigroup is selling its stake of 806 million shares in Fubon Financial, the statement said.
E.Sun to sell shares
E.Sun Financial Holdings Co (玉山金控), which took over the failed Kaohsiung Business Bank (高雄企銀) in May, said it hired Morgan Stanley to help sell US$100 million of shares held by its banking arm.
The Taipei-based financial group is planning to sell 170 million of its shares overseas in the form of global depositary receipts, the company said in a statement.
The plan helps dispose of shares E.Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行) obtained in a share swap in 2002, when the financial holding company was formed, the statement said.
The group said it hasn't yet decided when the share sale will occur.
Taiwan Cellular sells shares
Taiwan Cellular Corp (台灣大哥大), the nation's second-largest provider of mobile-phone servi-ces, raised about NT$333 million (US$9.7 million) selling shares in rival Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信).
Taiwan Cellular between July 21 and today sold 6.2 million Chunghwa Telecom shares at an average NT$53.41 each, the company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp. The company still has 262 million shares of Chunghwa Telecom.
In December 2002, Taiwan Cellular paid NT$27.7 billion for 550 million shares of Chunghwa Telecom, the nation's dominant phone operator.
NT dollar falls
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday continued losing ground against its US counterpart, dropping NT$0.064 to close at NT$34.199 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$670 million.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
Clambering hand-over-hand, sweat dripping into his eyes, a durian laborer expertly slices a cumbersome fruit from a tree before tossing it down to land with a soft thump in his colleague’s waiting arms about 15m below. Among Thailand’s most famous and lucrative exports, the pungent “king of fruits” is as distinctive in its smell as its spiky green-brown carapace, and has been farmed in the kingdom for hundreds of years. However, a vicious heat wave engulfing Southeast Asia has resulted in smaller yields and spiraling costs, with growers and sellers increasingly panicked as global warming damages the industry. “This year is a crisis,”
HIGH-TECH: As leading-edge process technologies become more complicated, only a handful of players are able to provide design services, the company’s CEO said Artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) yesterday said that revenue would grow significantly again in 2026 after adding a major AI chip customer, reversing moderation amid a product transition next year. The Taipei-based application-specific IC (ASIC) designer reiterated its strong revenue growth forecast for this year and 2026 after its stock plummeted about 23 percent to NT$3,145 from a peak of NT$4,085 on March 6 amid growing competition. Alchip said it has built strong partnerships with cloud service providers (CSP), denying that it had lost orders to smaller competitors such as Faraday Technology Corp (智原). Faraday said it has secured