The government sold 131.9 million shares, or 19.8 percent, of CSBC Corp, Taiwan (CSBC, 台灣國際造船) to institutional investors at an average price of NT$13.42 per share yesterday.
The state-run shipbuilder’s initial public offering (IPO) was oversubscribed by 1.45 times, attracting 191.8 million bids for its first round auction, its underwriter, Fubon Securities Co (富邦證券), said.
The Kaohsiung-based shipbuilder will hold its second round of share sales from Monday to Wednesday and is expected to sell 87.9 million shares (13.2 percent) to retail investors, Fubon Securities said.
Yesterday’s share sale attracted bids from major industrial and financial players, including China Steel Corp (中鋼), Taiwan Fertilizer Co (台肥), Fubon Group (富邦集團) and Mega International Commercial Bank Co (兆豐銀行), Fubon Securities said.
The highest bid price was NT$25 per share, which was nearly double the floor price of NT$13.31, while the lowest bid was equal to the floor price, the underwriter said.
As most of the bids offered by institutional investors were equal to the floor price, they were drawn randomly by the computer. In the end, China Steel and its subsidiary garnered 18 million shares, while Fubon and Mega got 5 million and 3.6 million shares respectively.
CSBC’s IPO is part of the government’s plan to privatize the shipbuilder by selling up to a 55 percent stake, or 366.4 million shares, to the public.
CSBC will also offer 119.9 million shares, or an 18 percent stake, to its employees at NT$13.31, the company said last month. CSBC employees can start subscribing to the retail portion of shares on Friday, the company said.
CSBC will start trading on the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Dec. 22. The company was a 99.4 percent government holding with an estimated capital base of NT$6.66 billion. It is the nation’s largest shipbuilder and the first among its local rivals to apply for an IPO.
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