Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體), the nation’s top computer memory chipmaker, received initial approval yesterday for a six-month extension on more than NT$63 billion (US$1.82 billion) in syndicated loans from major banks.
Powerchip’s bankers agreed to finalize by the end of this month their internal agreement to give a half-year grace period for the loans, said a Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐國際商銀) official, who was familiar with the matter but declined to be named.
“In a meeting today [Thursday], Mega gave the go-ahead to the loan rollover. But the initial decision was to ask the board [of directors] for final approval later this month,” the Mega official said by telephone.
Mega lent Powerchip NT$5.93 billion, making it the biggest creditor bank, the official said.
“The approval will help ease the growing pressure [on management] to improve operations during this difficult time when every dynamic random access memory [DRAM] chipmaker is losing cash,” Powerchip spokesman Eric Tan (譚仲民) said by telephone.
The agreement will give Powerchip a half-year grace period for the principal payment on the loans, but its board will be restricted from receiving compensation or bonuses during this period, the Mega official said.
The chipmaker asked the government for help in getting a six-month extension on its bank loans late last year after posting NT$32.03 billion in net losses for the first nine months of the year.
Powerchip was also trying to secure enough funding to avoid defaulting on US$158 million in debt due in June, Tan said.
As of the third quarter of last year, Powerchip had NT$17.6 billion in cash and short-term securities, down from NT$24.7 billion during the same period of 2007.
Meanwhile, DRAM maker, ProMOS Technologies Inc (茂德科技), yesterday said it would buy back US$335 million in corporate bonds currently trading on Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Ltd.
More than 97 percent of investors wanted to excise the put option on the ProMOS bonds due this week, Promos said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
ProMOS would use the NT$3 billion it has secured from its creditor banks to pay the redemption.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained