A private US trade association yesterday called on Taiwan's government to complete its review of the proposed buyout by a consortium led by the Carlyle Group for Advanced Semiconductor Engi-neering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體) as soon as possible.
The US-Taiwan Business Council also said in its Semiconductor Report -- Annual Review 2006 that the potential deal highlights the ability of Taiwanese companies to attract substantial foreign investments.
Apart from greatly benefiting the nation's economy, the planned buyout also underscores the attractiveness of Taiwan's semiconductor market, the Washington-based group said in a statement released on Tuesday.
Carlyle first expressed an interest in purchasing Kaohsiung's ASE on Nov. 24 for approximately US$5.47 billion (NT$180.23 billion).
ASE is the world's biggest chip packager and tester.
On Jan. 10, the US private equity fund applied to the government's Investment Commission for the purchase, targeting the acquisition of all of ASE's 4.6 million outstanding shares at NT$39 per share.
"Carlyle's entry into Taiwan's semiconductor market reflects the high caliber of Taiwan businesses and a desire to link the US and Taiwan -- arguably the two most important semiconductor markets in the world," the council's president Rupert Hammond-Chambers said in the statement.
According to the council's forecast, the nation's semiconductor market is expected to become the world's largest in terms of expenditures on chip equipment and for dynamic random access memory (DRAM) production this year, thanks mainly to new partnerships and a number of new investments.
The review of Carlyle's buyout offer for ASE could be held up after the consortium said it would consider taking the company private after the deal is closed.
The talk of going private has caused government concerns that the nation's other high-tech firms could follow suit.
But industry watchers have praised the proposed deal because ASE may stand to gain orders from Carlyle's other semiconductor businesses.
The US fund already includes Jazz Semiconductor Inc, Toshiba Ceramics Co and Freescale Semiconductor Inc in its portfolio.
Hammond-Chambers said in the statement that it is important to move away from the notion that only semiconductor companies can realize synergies through mergers and acquisitions in the semiconductor sector.
"Private equity firms are also well positioned to add value for shareholders, market sectors and economies," he wrote.
Emile Chang (張銘斌), a spokesman for the Investment Commission, told the Taipei Times on Jan. 12 that the government had not established a timetable for reviewing the Carlyle-ASE deal.
He also declined to comment on whether ASE would stop trading its shares on the Taiwan Stock Exchange following the buyout.
Nevertheless, Chang said that Carlyle was preparing to set up a local subsidiary and would use the unit to acquire ASE.
Shares of ASE dropped 0.4 percent to NT$37.55 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
additional reporting by Lisa Wang
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts