Thu, Jul 05, 2007 page11

• Business Briefs

  • STAFF WRITER, WITH AGENCIES
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  Kuo Tai-cheng passes on

  Kuo Tai-cheng (郭台成), former chairman of Foxconn Technology Co (鴻準) and brother of Terry Gou (郭台銘), Taiwan's second-richest man, died yesterday of cancer, a company spokesman said.

  Kuo, born in 1961, died at 2:17pm in a Beijing hospital accompanied by his wife and brother, said Edmund Ding (丁祁安), spokesman for Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密). Foxconn Technology is an affiliate of Hon Hai, of which Gou is chairman.

  Kuo stepped down as chairman of Taipei-based Foxconn on May 19, according to a filing to the Taiwan stock exchange. The statement did not state a reason for his resignation.

  Nokia chooses Synnex

  Nokia of Finland plans to boost its presence in Taiwan by using Synnex Technology International Corp (聯強), as the "fulfilment distributor" for Nokia cellphones, a newspaper reported yesterday.

  The Commercial Times said that the announcement came after Synnex had been dismissed by Chunghwa Telecom (中華電信) as its cellphone distributor.

  Nokia sells about 17 million cellphones each year in Taiwan and commands about 30 percent of the market. Synnex will not only handle Nokia cellphone sales, but also take care of logistics.

  P/E ratio of stocks up

  The average price-to-earnings ratio (P/E ratio) of stocks listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange was 20.26 at the end of last month, up by 18.47 compared with the end of May, statistics showed.

  Financial stocks had the highest P/E ratio among all sectors at 49.16, while steelmakers posted the lowest P/E ratio of 8.97.

  The average yield of all stocks listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange dropped from 4.29 percent in May to 3.93 percent last month, the stock regulator said. The average price-to-book ratio climbed from 1.9 in May to 2.06 last month, the statistics showed.

  Vietnam approves investment

  The Vietnamese government has approved an investment project proposed by Taiwan's Chinfon Trading Group (慶豐貿易集團) to produce compact trucks, vans and motorbikes in southern Vietnam, a Vietnamese daily reported yesterday.

  Chinfon Trading Group, which has already invested more than US$700 million in 26 investment projects in Vietnam, is planning to channel another US$78 million into the country, the report said.

  The report said Chinfon had submitted the investment proposal two years ago, planning to produce 10,000 trucks and vans per year. Construction of the factory is expected to start before the end of this year.

  The Chinfon Trading Group has in the past invested in banking, cement processing, shrimp farming and the health industry in Vietnam.

  Taiwan is the largest source of foreign investment for Vietnam.

  Memory makers' shares rise

  Shares of Samsung Electronics Co, Hynix Semiconductor Inc and other computer memory chipmakers rose on optimism that prices of the product will rise and boost earnings this quarter.

  Chipmakers will raise prices of dynamic-random-access memory, or DRAM, by at least 10 percent this month from last month, Dramexchange.com (集邦科技), Asia's biggest spot market for the chips, said in a statement yesterday. That would be the biggest increase since March last year, Taipei-based DRAMeXchange said.

  Prices have plunged more than 60 percent this year, eroding earnings at DRAM companies.

  In Taiwan, Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體), the nation's biggest DRAM maker, advanced 1.7 percent, while Nanya　Technology Corp's (南亞科技) stock rose 1.6 percent to close at an almost five-year high.
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