Want Want China Holdings Ltd (中國旺旺控股), the nation’s largest maker of rice cakes and flavored milk, said parent company Hot-Kid Holdings Ltd plans to sell Taiwan depositary receipts backed by shares in the company this year.
The number of shares to be offered won’t exceed 250 million, or 1.89 percent of outstanding stock, Want Want — controlled by Taiwanese billionaire Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明) — said in a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange yesterday.
The Taiwanese government said in July that it it would allow companies listing in Taiwan to use the proceeds in China. It also scrapped a rule banning companies with Chinese investors from selling shares on Taiwan’s stock exchange. Want Want is listed in Hong Kong.
An application will be made to Taiwan’s stock exchange this month, Want Want chief financial officer Everett Chu (朱紀文) said yesterday in an investor briefing organized by Grand Cathay Securities Corp (大華證券). Officials at Grand Cathay declined to say whether it would underwrite the sale.
The company plans to spend US$150 million to US$200 million to expand factories in China next year, Chu said.
Capital expenditure will be US$180 million this year, he said.
Want Want earns about nine-tenths of revenue by selling rice crackers, snacks and drinks such as Hot-Kid milk in the world’s most populous nation.
Retail sales in China, the world’s fastest-growing major economy, rose by at least 19 percent in each of the first seven months, increasing by 23.3 percent in July, the fastest pace since at least 1999.
The company doesn’t plan to seek acquisitions in China, Tsai said yesterday.
Tsai, 51, is Taiwan’s ninth-richest person, with a net worth of US$2.6 billion, Forbes magazine reported.
Want Want rose 0.3 percent to close at HK$3.49 in Hong Kong trading. The stock has risen 16 percent since it started trading, compared with an 8.8 percent decline in the benchmark Hang Seng Index.
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
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six