Management tussles involving the local shipping industry escalated yesterday, as Chinese Maritime Transport (
In the ads, Chinese Maritime questioned Taiwan Navigation Co's (
"As a shareholder of [state-controlled] Taiwan Navigation, Chinese Maritime strongly suspects that the company's decision to swap shares with Yang Ming was unlawful," the carrier said in the half-page ads published in the Chinese-language Economic Daily and the Commercial Times yesterday.
Chinese Maritime is controlled by Hong Kong's shipping tycoon John Peng (彭蔭剛), who owns a 67 percent stake in the bulk shipping company.
With a 28.85 percent stake, the company is the single largest shareholder of Taiwan Navigation.
Call for help
In its ads, Chinese Maritime asked non-state shareholders of Taiwan Navigation to cooperate in requesting that the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) launch a probe into the affair and annul the share swap.
Last Friday, the boards of state-controlled Taiwan Navigation and Yang Ming approved a bilateral share swap transaction through the issuance of new shares, with one Taiwan Navigation share exchanged for 1.35 of Yang Ming's.
The plan
Under the plan, Yang Ming would issue 69.6 million new shares to Taiwan Navigation and thereby lift its holdings in the nation's sixth-biggest shipping firm from 3.1 percent to 13.8 percent, a report by Bloomberg said.
As a result, pan-state holdings in Taiwan Navigation would increase to approximately 41 percent, including a 27 percent stake controlled by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC), the Economic Daily reported yesterday.
By contrast, Chinese Maritime's holdings in the rival would drop to 25.7 percent.
Unfair
Casting doubt on a deal that unfairly benefited Yang Ming, Chinese Maritime said that "the reasonable share swap ratio should be much higher than the announced 1 to 1.35."
Taiwan Navigation's decision to issue new shares was meant to dilute the holdings of existing shareholders, which would in turn lead to the dilution of earnings per share and share price, Chinese Maritime said.
The carrier also said that in its capacity as a regulator, the MOTC had failed to uphold its neutral stance and disregarded the interests of investors.
In response to the accusation, Minister of Transportation and Communications Tsai Duei (蔡堆) said that the ministry that oversees the shipping industry never meddled in the operations or share swap deals of shipping companies, the Economic Daily reported.
No request
Meanwhile, FSC spokesperson Susan Chang (張秀蓮) said yesterday that the commission had not received any request for an investigation from Chinese Maritime.
The commission would review the share swap, Chang said during a phone interview yesterday.
If nothing untoward was uncovered, the regulator would not intervene, she said.
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
Intel Corp has named Tasha Chuang (莊蓓瑜) to lead Intel Taiwan in a bid to reinforce relations between the company and its Taiwanese partners. The appointment of Chuang as general manager for Intel Taiwan takes effect on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday. Chuang is to lead her team in Taiwan to pursue product development and sales growth in an effort to reinforce the company’s ties with its partners and clients, Intel said. Chuang was previously in charge of managing Intel’s ties with leading Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which included helping Asustek strengthen its global businesses, the company
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said it plans to ship its new 1 megawatt charging systems for electric trucks and buses in the first half of next year at the earliest. The new charging piles, which deliver up to 1 megawatt of charging power, are designed for heavy-duty electric vehicles, and support a maximum current of 1,500 amperes and output of 1,250 volts, Delta said in a news release. “If everything goes smoothly, we could begin shipping those new charging systems as early as in the first half of next year,” a company official said. The new
RSS