Shares of Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體) and ProMOS Technologies Inc (茂德科技) rallied near their 7 percent daily limit yesterday on news that Japan’s top memory chipmaker, Elpida Memory Inc, was considering a four-way merger involving the two Taiwanese chipmakers.
The stock price of Taiwan’s top computer memory chipmaker, Powerchip, jumped 6.97 percent to close at NT$3.07, while ProMOS’ rose 6.34 percent to NT$1.51, outperforming the benchmark TAIEX, which inched up 0.13 percent.
Shares of the nation’s No. 2 computer memory chipmaker, Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), were unchanged at NT$5.62 after reporting losses of NT$10.67 billion (US$318 million) in the fourth quarter, its second-biggest quarterly losses.
In Tokyo trading, shares of Elpida, the world’s third-largest maker of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips used in mobile phones and home electronics, climbed 2.3 percent to close at ¥545.
Earlier yesterday, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK reported that Elpida was in the final stages of talks to merge operations with ProMOS and two other unidentified Taiwanese companies amid plummeting demand in the semiconductor sector.
The NHK report didn’t identify the other two companies or say where it obtained the information, but speculation was rife that it was referring to Powerchip and Elpida-joint venture Rexchip Electronics Inc (瑞晶電子).
“While it is true that we are in talks with Taiwanese chipmakers, nothing has been decided at the moment,” said Hideki Saito, a spokesman at Elpida, in a report by Bloomberg yesterday.
Powerchip, however, dismissed the rumors.
“It’s old news. We are not pushing for such a consolidation. The only consolidation plan we have is the one we proposed to the government the other day,” Powerchip spokesman Eric Tan (譚仲民) told the Taipei Times by telephone.
Industry sources said that Elpida had been trying to bring the four chipmakers together to create one big DRAM supplier that can rival South Korean chipmaker Samsung Electronics Co.
“Companies have been discussing all kinds of consolidation options, including the four-way merger. Pushing for a [four-way merger] plan is likely,” a source at a local DRAM company told Taipei Times on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Late last month, Powerchip and Rexchip jointly submitted an industry consolidation and bailout proposal to the Taiwanese government, but the Ministry of Economic Affairs rejected the plan. The companies did not disclose the content.
Earlier this month, beleaguered ProMOS filed its consolidation plan, in collaboration with both Rexchip and Elpida, to the government in hopes of obtaining assistance to avoid bankruptcy.
The government also turned down ProMOS’ proposal and told the company to revise it. A company official said yesterday the firm was still trying to reach a consensus among the companies involved in the proposal.
ProMOS said in a stock exchange filing yesterday that it had sold a piece of property to Kingston Technology Co for US$15 million to repay loans to a US memory chip company based in Fountain Valley, California.
Last week, ProMOS sold NT$580 million in manufacturing equipment to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, as part of its efforts to raise capital before its US$330 million overseas corporate debt matures on Feb. 14.
Unnamed government officials suggested last week that ProMOS’ creditors, led by the Bank of Taiwan (臺灣銀行) and Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合作金庫銀行), continue financing local DRAM makers through a loan-equity conversion scheme.
But Bank of Taiwan chairwoman Susan Chang (張秀蓮) said yesterday that the state-owned bank had no interest in securing stocks of cash-strapped high-tech firms, including ProMOS, to ease their financial strain.
“If the bank were to invest, we would not consider non-financial businesses but consider options we’re familiar with,” Chang said.
Additional reporting by Crystal Hsu
In Italy’s storied gold-making hubs, jewelers are reworking their designs to trim gold content as they race to blunt the effect of record prices and appeal to shoppers watching their budgets. Gold prices hit a record high on Thursday, surging near US$5,600 an ounce, more than double a year ago as geopolitical concerns and jitters over trade pushed investors toward the safe-haven asset. The rally is putting undue pressure on small artisans as they face mounting demands from customers, including international brands, to produce cheaper items, from signature pieces to wedding rings, according to interviews with four independent jewelers in Italy’s main
Macronix International Co (旺宏), the world’s biggest NOR flash memory supplier, yesterday said it would spend NT$22 billion (US$699.1 million) on capacity expansion this year to increase its production of mid-to-low-density memory chips as the world’s major memorychip suppliers are phasing out the market. The company said its planned capital expenditures are about 11 times higher than the NT$1.8 billion it spent on new facilities and equipment last year. A majority of this year’s outlay would be allocated to step up capacity of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chips, which are used in embedded multimedia cards (eMMC), a managed
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has talked up the benefits of a weaker yen in a campaign speech, adopting a tone at odds with her finance ministry, which has refused to rule out any options to counter excessive foreign exchange volatility. Takaichi later softened her stance, saying she did not have a preference for the yen’s direction. “People say the weak yen is bad right now, but for export industries, it’s a major opportunity,” Takaichi said on Saturday at a rally for Liberal Democratic Party candidate Daishiro Yamagiwa in Kanagawa Prefecture ahead of a snap election on Sunday. “Whether it’s selling food or
In the wake of strong global demand for AI applications, Taiwan’s export-oriented economy accelerated with the composite index of economic indicators flashing the first “red” light in December for one year, indicating the economy is in booming mode, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Moreover, the index of leading indicators, which gauges the potential state of the economy over the next six months, also moved higher in December amid growing optimism over the outlook, the NDC said. In December, the index of economic indicators rose one point from a month earlier to 38, at the lower end of the “red” light.
RSS