Taiwanese prosecutors yesterday raided offices at United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s second-largest custom-chip maker, as part of a probe into insider trading.
Prosecutors are investigating transactions that took place around April to July 2006, Lo Hsueh-mei (羅雪梅), a spokeswoman for the Hsinchu District Prosecutors’ Office, said by telephone yesterday.
A public relations official at UMC confirmed to the Taipei Times that the company’s Hsinchu headquarters and its Taipei office were searched yesterday afternoon over some of the company’s re-investments.
But the official, who requested anonymity, did not clarify which re-investments prosecutors were investigating nor confirm that the raid was connected to the insider trading probe.
The business news Web site cnYes.com said last night that the probe could be related to UMC’s purchases of shares of ProMOS Technologies Inc (茂德科技), the nation’s third-largest maker of computer memory chips, in 2006. It did not cite sources.
News of the raid came on the same day the company announced it would spend as much as NT$4.21 billion (US$134 million) to buy back 1.51 percent of its shares on the open market to prop up distressed share prices.
Shares of UMC closed up 2.7 percent at NT$13.3 yesterday on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The stock has declined 34 percent this year and touched a historic low of NT$12.7 on Friday.
UMC said it would pay NT$9.31 to NT$21.05 each for 200 million shares that it would then cancel. The buyback will run from today to Oct. 27, it said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) secured a record 70.2 percent share of the global foundry business in the second quarter, up from 67.6 percent the previous quarter, and continued widening its lead over second-placed Samsung Electronics Co, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said on Monday. TSMC posted US$30.24 billion in sales in the April-to-June period, up 18.5 percent from the previous quarter, driven by major smartphone customers entering their ramp-up cycle and robust demand for artificial intelligence chips, laptops and PCs, which boosted wafer shipments and average selling prices, TrendForce said in a report. Samsung’s sales also grew in the second quarter, up
LIMITED IMPACT: Investor confidence was likely sustained by its relatively small exposure to the Chinese market, as only less advanced chips are made in Nanjing Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) saw its stock price close steady yesterday in a sign that the loss of the validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing, China, fab should have a mild impact on the world’s biggest contract chipmaker financially and technologically. Media reports about the waiver loss sent TSMC down 1.29 percent during the early trading session yesterday, but the stock soon regained strength and ended at NT$1,160, unchanged from Tuesday. Investors’ confidence in TSMC was likely built on its relatively small exposure to the Chinese market, as Chinese customers contributed about 9 percent to TSMC’s revenue last
Taiwan and Japan will kick off a series of cross border listings of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) this month, a milestone for the internationalization of the local ETF market, the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) said Wednesday. In a statement, the TWSE said the cross border ETF listings between Taiwan and Japan are expected to boost the local capital market’s visibility internationally and serve as a key for Taiwan becoming an asset management hub in the region. An ETF, a pooled investment security that is traded like an individual stock, can be tracked from the price of a single stock to a large and
Despite global geopolitical uncertainties and macroeconomic volatility, DBS Bank Taiwan (星展台灣) yesterday reported that its first-half revenue rose 10 percent year-on-year to a record NT$16.5 billion (US$537.8 million), while net profit surged 65 percent to an unprecedented NT$4.4 billion. The nation’s largest foreign bank made the announcement on the second anniversary of its integration with Citibank Taiwan Ltd’s (花旗台灣) consumer banking business. “Taiwan is a key market for DBS. Over the years, we have consistently demonstrated our commitment to deepening our presence in Taiwan, not only via continued investment to support franchise growth, but also through a series of bolt-on acquisitions,” DBS
RSS