The Taiwan Stock Exchange Corporation (TSE, 台灣證交所) yesterday heralded a record high of 698 listed companies and vowed to attract another 40 firms seeking initial public offerings (IPO) this year, a TSE executive said yesterday.
"The bourse has listed 698 firms in total, marking a historic high since it was founded 46 years ago," TSE chairman Wu Rong-i (吳榮義) said at a ceremony yesterday to welcome seven new public firms.
A total of 30 new companies went public last year, eight of which were unsuccessful, while another 12 were acquired by other companies, Wu said.
The total number of TSE-listed companies dropped to 688 in 2006 from 691 in 2005 and 697 in 2004.
As well as the seven new firms listed yesterday, another 13 companies have been approved to go public this month, TSE president Su Song-chin (蘇松欽) said, adding the number of TSE-listed companies will exceed 710.
Foreign investors, who account for 33 percent of the holdings on the local market, own more than 60 percent of the nation's IT stocks, Wu said.
Wu further encouraged overseas-based Taiwanese companies to return and list in the home bourse.
"It would be to those foreign-based Taiwanese companies' advantages to go public in Taiwan, which has a 142 percent stock turnover -- higher than Hong Kong's 40 percent," Wu said.
Prices of some 80 TSE-listed companies more than doubled in the last four years with some growing three or four-fold, he said.
In addition, the TSE yesterday vowed to average a daily turnover of NT$136 billion next year -- a goal analysts called challenging.
"It will be tough," said Kevin Chung (
Last year daily turnover set a new high for recent years at NT$135 billion as the government tried to boost the local stock market by introducing more initiatives before the legislative and presidential elections, Chung said.
Next year, those bullish factors could disappear and increased political uncertainty and weaker economic growth would negatively impact the bourse, he said.
Chung also said he was concerned about foreign investors' unusual activity this quarter.
"They have been sellers of local stocks in the fourth quarter. They have been net buyers of local shares since 1998," Chen said. "Foreign investors are an important driver of the local stock market."
Enfield Medical Co (東貿國際), one of the seven companies that went public yesterday, is the nation's largest provider of dialysis products.
After partnering with Germany-based Fresenius Medical Care (FMC) in January last year, Enfield's net profit for the first three quarters totaled NT1.11 billion (US$34.22 million).
This was a four-fold growth from a year earlier.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last