■ INVESTMENT
E.Sun to buy back bonds
E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控) said it would buy back US$267 million of bonds convertible into shares. E.Sun will purchase the bonds, issued in 2006, after an investor exercised the right to sell the securities, the Taipei-based company said in a filing to the stock exchange. The investor held a put option, which gives the holder of a security the right to sell under certain conditions. The terms of the bond and the identity of the seller were not provided in the statement. Temasek Holdings Pte, the Singapore government's investment company, bought the bonds in March 2006, the two companies said in a statement at that time.
■ INTERNET
'Spam king' admits guilt
A man once described as one of the world's top e-mail spammers pleaded guilty in Seattle, Washington, on Friday to federal charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, and failure to file a tax return. Robert Alan Soloway, 29, was dubbed "the spam king" by prosecutors who said he used networks of compromised computers to send out millions upon millions of junk e-mails since 2003. He was arrested last summer and charged in a 40-count indictment. He agreed to plead guilty to the three charges and the rest were dropped, including e-mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and numerous other counts of mail and wire fraud. He could face up to 20 years in prison.
■ FOOD
Venezuela buys meat chain
The Venezuelan government has bought a private chain of meatpacking plants and has its sights set on a major dairy company, President Hugo Chavez said on Friday, as the country seeks to stem sporadic shortages of food staples. Chavez said the government purchased the meat plants as part of its efforts to improve food distribution while moving toward a socialist state. He did not identify the company or give details, but said it represents a majority of the country's meatpacking and cold-storage transport facilities. "We've nationalized a great chain," Chavez said, adding that the government bought it outright without "trampling" the seller's rights.
■ ELECTRONICS
US game sales jump 34%
US sales of video game hardware and software last month jumped 34 percent to US$1.33 billion, as Sony's PlayStation 3 outsold Microsoft's Xbox 360 for the second month running. Both consoles still trailed far behind Nintendo's Wii, which sold 432,000 units, compared to the PS3's 281,000 and Xbox 360's 255,000 units, market research firm NPD said. Overall the top selling console was Nintendo's handheld DS, which sold 588,000 units. Software sales last month were up 47 percent year-on-year, while hardware sales rose 19 percent, NPD said.
■ BANKING
Dresdner to split activities
Dresdner Bank, part of the giant Allianz insurance group, will split up its investment and retail banking activities, a spokesman said on Friday. The two entities would initially remain under the control of a single holding group, the spokesman said, confirming a report in the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. No job cuts were foreseen, he said, speaking after a meeting of Dresdner Bank's supervisory board that sealed the deal. The announcement had been expected because the investment bank division, known as Dresdner Kleinwort, has posed problems for some time and has been hit hard by the US subprime home loan crisis.
A proposed 100 percent tariff on chip imports announced by US President Donald Trump could shift more of Taiwan’s semiconductor production overseas, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) researcher said yesterday. Trump’s tariff policy will accelerate the global semiconductor industry’s pace to establish roots in the US, leading to higher supply chain costs and ultimately raising prices of consumer electronics and creating uncertainty for future market demand, Arisa Liu (劉佩真) at the institute’s Taiwan Industry Economics Database said in a telephone interview. Trump’s move signals his intention to "restore the glory of the US semiconductor industry," Liu noted, saying that
On Ireland’s blustery western seaboard, researchers are gleefully flying giant kites — not for fun, but in the hope of generating renewable electricity and sparking a “revolution” in wind energy. “We use a kite to capture the wind and a generator at the bottom of it that captures the power,” said Padraic Doherty of Kitepower, the Dutch firm behind the venture. At its test site in operation since September 2023 near the small town of Bangor Erris, the team transports the vast 60-square-meter kite from a hangar across the lunar-like bogland to a generator. The kite is then attached by a
Foxconn Technology Co (鴻準精密), a metal casing supplier owned by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), yesterday announced plans to invest US$1 billion in the US over the next decade as part of its business transformation strategy. The Apple Inc supplier said in a statement that its board approved the investment on Thursday, as part of a transformation strategy focused on precision mold development, smart manufacturing, robotics and advanced automation. The strategy would have a strong emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI), the company added. The company said it aims to build a flexible, intelligent production ecosystem to boost competitiveness and sustainability. Foxconn
STILL UNCLEAR: Several aspects of the policy still need to be clarified, such as whether the exemptions would expand to related products, PwC Taiwan warned The TAIEX surged yesterday, led by gains in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), after US President Donald Trump announced a sweeping 100 percent tariff on imported semiconductors — while exempting companies operating or building plants in the US, which includes TSMC. The benchmark index jumped 556.41 points, or 2.37 percent, to close at 24,003.77, breaching the 24,000-point level and hitting its highest close this year, Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) data showed. TSMC rose NT$55, or 4.89 percent, to close at a record NT$1,180, as the company is already investing heavily in a multibillion-dollar plant in Arizona that led investors to assume
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