Yuen Foong Yu Paper Manufactur-ing Co (永豐餘造紙) said yesterday that the company has gained government approval to set up a Malaysian subsidiary, a move driven by the company's desire to expand operations abroad while skirting government regulation.
The Investment Commission on Tuesday passed Yuen Foong Yu's application to invest US$148 million in YFY International Labuan Co in Malaysia.
YFY Industrial Paper Co (永豐餘工業用紙), an affiliate of Yuen Foong Yu that was spun off from the company in September last year, will shift all its shares over to the Malaysian entity, Juliana Liu (劉瑞娥), spokeswoman for Yuen Foong Yu, said in a phone interview yesterday.
YFY Industrial Paper is the largest paper utensil manufacturer in Taiwan and China. To satisfy growing international demand for industrial paper, the company plans to introduce more foreign shareholders or strategic partners, Liu said.
Some foreign papermakers and investors that YFY Industrial Paper has talked with, however, were concerned about a range of investment restrictions in Taiwan, Liu said. The China-bound investment cap of 40 percent of a company's net value is one example, she said.
To resolve these concerns, the company decided to establish YFY International Labuan and transfer all its shares to the Malaysian holding company, Liu said.
Yuen Foong Yu's restructuring scheme was approved by its board in August, according to a filing to the stock exchange yesterday.
"The market in Taiwan is saturated, and we must expand, especially to emerging markets where demand for industrial paper is strong," Liu said.
Through its overseas arm, Yuen Foong Yu hopes to boost foreign shareholding up to 30 percent, and forge alliances with foreign partners to strengthen its technology and competitiveness, Liu said.
Yuen Foong Yu participated in the Morgan Stanley Asia Pacific Summit held in Singapore last Tuesday and Wednesday. During the summit, companies talked one-on-one with investors and analysts.
Many foreign investors have shown interest in the company, Liu said, "we do not rule out listing the Malaysian company on an overseas stock exchange."
YFY Industrial Paper has three mills in Taiwan and China producing Kraft board and white board for the manufacturing of high quality corrugated and colored boxes. The company also has a total of 17 paper utensil mills in Taiwan and China where it produces corrugated cases, colored cases, colored cartons, food utensils and paper pallets.
Shares of Yuen Foong Yu rose 3.15 percent to close at NT$13.1 (US$0.4) on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
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
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by