Asia Pacific Telecom Group (亞太電信集團), which is affiliated with the debt-ridden Rebar Asia Pacific Group (力霸亞太企業集團), yesterday said it was on track to break even this year amid speculation about embezzlement and corruption.
The group's clarification came after one of its fixed-line subsidiaries, the unlisted Asia Pacific Broadband Telecom Co (亞太固網), was alleged to have lied to shareholders and misappropriated funds.
As of yesterday, 41 Taiwanese companies said they had booked about NT$3.11 billion (US$94.9 million) in losses as a result of investments in the fixed-line service operator. Information provided by the Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp showed the firms planned to book more losses in the near future.
"The company's operations are normal. Employees are clocking in as usual. News reports that management misappropriated NT$80 billion are untrue," Asia Pacific Broadband Telecom president Wang Lin-tai (王令台) told reporters.
The company's chairwoman, Wang Chin She-ying (
Up to 90 listed companies could be affected by the Rebar financial scandal, with potential losses amounting to NT$20 billion through investments in Asia Pacific Broadband Telecom, SinoPac Securities Corp (永豐金證券) said yesterday in a note to investors, citing data garnered from 2005 records.
Rebar Group affiliates Chia Hsin Food & Synthetic Fiber Co (嘉新食品化纖), China Rebar Co (中國力霸) and The Chinese Bank (中華銀行) invested NT$2.52 billion, NT$2.57 billion and NT$1.3 billion in the telecom service provider, respectively, SinoPac Securities said.
Both Chia Hsin and China Rebar were approved for insolvency protection last Thursday, while The Chinese Bank was taken over by the government last Friday.
Wang Lin-tai yesterday emphasized that investigators had not questioned him or searched the company.
He also dismissed media reports that Asia Pacific Telecom Group was in serious financial difficulty. He said the telecom group was on track to break even this year.
Total revenues would expand by 20 percent to NT$18.5 billion this year from NT$15.3 billion last year, mostly from the company's mobile and fixed-line businesses, Wang said.
The company hopes to boost third-generation (3G) subscribers to 1.38 million this year, from 1 million last year, he said.
The telecom group also owns 3G mobile service provider Asia Pacific Broadband Wireless Communications Inc (亞太行動寬頻) and Internet service provider Asia Pacific Online Services Inc (亞太線上).
Asia Pacific Telecom said it spent NT$10 billion for a 3G license and another NT$200 billion on building 2,300 base stations.
Still, SinoPac Securities recommended a wait-and-see strategy on financial stocks, given potentially mounting bad debts after Chia Hsin and China Rebar claimed insolvency protection.
The brokerage suggested investors steer clear of Mega Financial Holding Co (
Mega Financial is the largest single creditor of the ailing Rebar Group, with outstanding loans of NT$6.23 billion. The financial holding firm's NT$2.1 billion investments in Asia Pacific Broadband Telecom could dent its earnings by NT$0.2 per share, SinoPac Securities said.
Shares of Mega Financial declined 2.2 percent to NT$22.40 yesterday, after the firm said it planned to write off a further NT$749 million for investments in Asia Pacific Broadband Telecom.
Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
PROJECTION: TSMC said it expects strong growth this year, with revenue in US dollars projected to grow by about 30 percent, outperforming the industry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales last month reached NT$317.66 billion (US$9.98 billion), the highest ever for the month of February, driven by robust demand for chips built using the company’s advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process. Last month’s figure was up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, but fell 20.8 percent from January, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. For the first two months of the year, TSMC posted cumulative sales of NT$718.91 billion, up 29.9 percent from a year earlier. Analysts attributed the growth to sustained global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products
RSS