Deutsche Bank bonds are go
The Financial Supervisory Com-mission said yesterday that Deutsche Bank's application to issue the nation's first batch of US dollar-denominated corporate bonds will take effect next Tuesday, seven working days after the foreign bank lodged the application last Friday.
The whole batch of bonds to be traded in Taiwan's offshore bond market is worth US$200 million to US$500 million with a face value of US$10,000 per sheet and a yield of between 4.6 percent and 5 percent, the commission said in a statement released yesterday.
The market regulator is holding a game to name the bond with 15 choices for participants, including Formosa Bond and Taiwan 101 Bond.
Wafer foundries cool heels
The wafer foundry industry will have to wait up to six months for its clients to clear their inventory, a spokesman for Taiwan Semicon-ductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world's largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday.
The comments confirmed a Chinese-language Economic Daily News report, in which company vice chairman Tseng Fan-cheng (曾繁城) also said that the launch of new processors for personal computers and Microsoft's new operating system had not provided a much anticipated boost for the PC market.
"Yes, Tseng did say that," TSMC spokesman Tzeng Jinn-haw (曾晉皓) said on the excess inventory, "but he stopped short of saying the industry will begin witnessing a business upturn afterwards."
King's Town woos Lyu
King's Town Bank (京城銀行), the successor to Tainan Business Bank (台南企銀), announced on Sunday that it had invited former minister of finance Joseph Lyu (呂桔誠) to be the bank's chairman.
After raising NT$3.8 billion (US$115.36 million) and a change of name last year, King's Town has endeavored to promote its business and improve asset quality, lowering its bad loan ratio to 2.26 percent and raising its coverage ratio to 32.07 percent as of last month, the bank said in a filing yesterday.
The bank expected the appointment of Lyu, a seasoned banker, to help enhance operations and strengthen management in light of his experiences at the Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行), the Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行) and foreign financial institutions, the filing said.
Lyu stepped down in July after a five-month stint at the finance ministry amid heavy criticism of the ministry's loss of board seats in state-controlled Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控) to smaller rival Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控). The loss raised concerns of a conflict of interest.
Money supply growth down
The nation's growth in money supply slowed last month as expansion in bank lending and investment cooled.
M2, the broadest measure of money supply, rose 5.43 percent last month from a year earlier after gaining 5.72 percent in July, the Central Bank of China said yesterday.
M1A, which tracks net currency in circulation plus checking accounts and passbook deposits, gained 3.18 percent last month after climbing 4.58 percent in July, the central bank said.
M1B, which excludes time deposits and foreign-currency deposits included in M2, rose 2.77 percent last month from a year earlier, following a 3.12 percent increase the previous month.
NT dollar gains on greenback
The New Taiwan dollar gained against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, moving up NT$0.001 to close at NT$32.939. A total of US$627 million changed hands during the day's trading.
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
Six Taiwanese companies, including contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), made the 2025 Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest firms by revenue. In a report published by New York-based Fortune magazine on Tuesday, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), ranked highest among Taiwanese firms, placing 28th with revenue of US$213.69 billion. Up 60 spots from last year, TSMC rose to No. 126 with US$90.16 billion in revenue, followed by Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) at 348th, Pegatron Corp (和碩) at 461st, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) at 494th and Wistron Corp (緯創) at
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
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