After going through a successful restructuring, Tong Lung Metal Industry Co (
"Without a doubt, Tong Lung will be back on the blue-chip list again," said Calvin Chen (
The shares of Tong Lung, a leading door lockset maker, currently require full-payment transaction. The company is set to resume normal transaction of its shares on the over-the-counter GRETAI Securities Market on March 23. The company will hold an investor conference next Wednesday.
Investors have shown their support for the company, with shares of Tong Lung advancing NT$3 to close at NT$46.2 yesterday.
Established in 1977, Tong Lung was once the world's third-largest door lock manufacturer, but incurred a huge debt of NT$6.2 billion (US$190 million) in 1998 after its president Fan Fang-kuei (范芳魁) and his brother Fan Fang-yuan (范芳源) lost NT$8.8 billion speculating on the stock market.
The company then applied to the Chiayi District Court in order to undergo a corporate restructuring plan, and invited Taiwan Securities Co (
Despite the firm's bankruptcy, Tong Lung's superior techniques in the lockset industry helped it secure a lifeline in December 2000 from HSBC Private Equity (Asia), which injected NT$1.8 billion to take a 70 percent stake in the company. The Shin Kong Group (
In 2001, Tong Lung completed its transformation, becoming an example of a company that had undergone successful restructuring.
The key figures that steered the rejuvenation, however, are two men who do not have a background in the industry: Vincent Chen (陳伯昌), then board director of HSBC and vice chairman and president of Tong Lung, and Wang Chung-yu (王鍾渝), the former chairman of state-run China Steel Corp (中鋼), who took the company's chairmanship in 2002.
In addition to exercising their expertise in finance and management, the duo are also super salesmen who frequently travel aboard to secure foreign orders.
Their efforts paid off, as Tong Lung wiped away all its red ink in 2004 and started to turn a profit last year. As a result, the company posted a 15 percent year-on-year sales increase to NT$2 billion last year, and issued NT$1 in cash per share and a NT$0.2 dividend per share to its stockholders.
The company's product line extends from basic metal door locks to electronic security systems. Tong Lung has a slew of door lock technology patents and products that have secured its leading position in the industry despite the financial crisis, Yuanta Core Pacific's Chen said. He added that Tong Lung's smaller rival Taiwan Fu Hsing Industry Co (
Sales for the first two months of the year were NT$490 million, a 95.26 percent jump from a year ago, the company said. Tong Lung's current capitalization is NT$791 million, including common shares of NT$687 million.
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
UNCERTAINTIES: Exports surged 34.1% and private investment grew 7.03% to outpace expectations in the first half, although US tariffs could stall momentum The Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast to 3.05 percent this year on a robust first-half performance, but warned that US tariff threats and external uncertainty could stall momentum in the second half of the year. “The first half proved exceptionally strong, allowing room for optimism,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “But the growth momentum may slow moving forward due to US tariffs.” The tariff threat poses definite downside risks, although the scale of the impact remains unclear given the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s policies, Lien said. Despite the headwinds, Taiwan is likely
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of