Foreign buyers load up on TSMC shares

Foreign institutional investors yesterday bought NT$120.1 billion (US$3.63 billion) worth of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) stocks after the market closed, setting a record high in a post-session transaction of a single company's stocks.

Citigroup Global Markets Inc purchased 1.928 billion shares of the world's leading contract chip-maker at NT$62.3 per share, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said on its Web site.

Apart from TSMC, foreign investors also net purchased stocks of Taiwan Cement Corp (台泥), Far Eastern Textile Co (遠紡), China Steel Corp (中鋼) and Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮) during after-hours trading yesterday, the stock exchange added.

Despite the huge net purchase of local shares by foreign investors, it had no major impact on the foreign exchange market, the nation's central bank said in a statement released yesterday.

The New Taiwan dollar closed at NT$33.107 against the US dollar, up NT$0.025 from the previous session.

Shares of TSMC opened at NT$62.5 and closed at NT$63.5 on the stock exchange, down NT$0.3 from the previous session, giving the Hsinchu, Taiwan-based company a market value of about NT$1.57 trillion (US$47.4 billion).

Citigroup Global Markets bought a huge amount of TSMC shares on behalf of Royal Philips Electronics NV, Europe's largest maker of consumer electronics, according to a statement released by Amsterdam-based Philips yesterday.

Philips said it transferred a 7.8 percent stake in TSMC from its unit Philips Electronics Industries (Taiwan) Ltd, paving the way for a possible future sale of the holding.

"The transaction will facilitate any future disposal," the electronics maker said. The transfer advanced the payment of about 240 million euros (US$286 million) in tax that otherwise would have been due "at the moment the shares would be sold to a third party."

Philips has cut its stake in TSMC and sold shares in other listed companies such as Vivendi Universal SA and ASML Holding NV to pay for takeovers in medical systems and health-care appliances. Those industries are typically less sensitive to economic swings than the semiconductor business.

Philips has a 16.4 percent stake in TSMC, cutting its holding from 18.7 percent following a sale of shares in the chipmaker in August.

Philips said on Dec. 7 that it would now account for its TSMC stake as "available for sale securities" from "equity investment," meaning the holding will be measured by its market value.