The debt-ridden Youth Camp Health Group (
The 10-page document also showed that Youth Camp had tried to approach potential buyers such as Being Sport fitness center (
Youth Camp chairwoman Pure Tsai (
Tsai yesterday confirmed that the company is negotiating with a potential buyer to rescue the 29-year-old firm, although rumors circulated that she might also shut down the Taipei 101 Oxy Gym.
But she declined to elaborate on how Youth Group will be sold -- partially or as a whole.
"We'll issue a joint statement tomorrow [Thursday]," she said, denying that the buyer is President Being Corp (
According to the internal document, which was addressed to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government last month, Youth Camp claimed that some pro-unification Chinese-language media had maliciously reported on the company's finances since late February.
Youth Camp is known for its close ties with the pan-green alliance. Tsai's lawyer husband Fan Jen-yu (
The group's financial crisis erupted in late February when checks worth tens of millions of NT dollars bounced and payment of salaries for 600 employees was delayed.
The company accused its rivals of working with the media to produce bad news at the critical point at which Youth Camp tried to raise capital.
"A long report published in the United Daily News (
The company had tried to apply for loans of NT$100 million (US$3.2 million) from five local banks -- First Commercial Bank (第一銀行), Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合作金庫), Lank Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行), Bank of Overseas Chinese (華僑銀行) and Chiao Tung Bank (交通銀行) -- to date without success.
Youth Camp's debt currently stands at NT$1.3 billion, including bank loans of NT$760 million, according to the document.
Ker Chien-ming (
The document listed the slow office-leasing process in the Taipei 101 skyscraper as the main reason behind Youth Camp's worsening financial situation.
The occupancy rate at the world's tallest building is at about 35 percent, far below the 70 percent that was projected for the end of last year.
"Because of the slow office leasing, there are fewer people moving about in the building ... but huge investments and operational costs have placed a heavy burden on Youth Camp," the document said.
The company signed a 15-year lease with Taipei Financial Center Corp (
In response to Youth Camp's criticism, Michael Liu (劉家豪), assistant vice president of Taipei Financial Center, said tenants should conduct market surveys before signing leases.
"You cannot limit your target customers to the employees in the building. I think this is about positioning and marketing strategies. It should have nothing to do with Taipei 101," Liu said.
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Huawei Technologies Co’s (華為) latest smartphones carry a version of the advanced made-in-China processor it revealed last year, results from an independent analysis showed. This underscored the Chinese company’s ability to sustain production of the controversial chip. The Pura 70 series unveiled last week sports the Kirin 9010 processor, research firm TechInsights found during a teardown of the device. This is a newer version of the Kirin 9000s, made by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) for the Mate 60 Pro, which had alarmed officials in Washington who thought a 7-nanometer chip was beyond China’s capabilities. Huawei has enjoyed a resurgence since
purpose: Tesla’s CEO sought to meet senior Chinese officials to discuss the rollout of its ‘full self-driving’ software in China and approval to transfer data they had collected Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk arrived in Beijing yesterday on an unannounced visit, where he is expected to meet senior officials to discuss the rollout of "full self-driving" (FSD) software and permission to transfer data overseas, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Chinese state media reported that he met Premier Li Qiang (李強) in Beijing, during which Li told Musk that Tesla's development in China could be regarded as a successful example of US-China economic and trade cooperation. Musk confirmed his meeting with the premier yesterday with a post on social media platform X. "Honored to meet with Premier Li