TWSE plans new system
Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp (TWSE, 台灣證交所) is planning an off-market trading system for shares traded on the bourse, the Dow Jones Newswire reported yesterday, citing Lawrence Shan (單高年), senior vice president at the exchange’s corporate planning and communications department.
The system would allow listed shares to be traded over the counter. At the moment, after-hours trading is confined mainly to block trades.
Shan said the trading mechanism would require a legislative amendment before it can be implemented, and the plan is still at a very early stage.
Meanwhile, TWSE president Samuel Hsu (許仁壽) said there was no plan to remove the daily equity-trading limit “soon” on concern it may cause volatility in the market.
“We will evaluate removing the trading limit when the economy recovers,” Hsu said in an interview with the Bloomberg. “We want investors to regain confidence first.”
LCD giant invests in LEDs
AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), Taiwan’s largest maker of liquid-crystal displays (LCDs), said it paid NT$384 million (US$11 million) for a stake in Lighthouse Technology Inc.
The stock was bought through a private placement, and AU Optronics owns 35 percent of the maker of light-emitting diodes (LED) after the transaction, the Hsinchu-based company said in an exchange filing yesterday.
Hong Kong ties boosted
Taiwan and Hong Kong agreed to strengthen economic and trade ties, stepping toward regional cooperation in southern China after the relations across the Taiwan Strait improved last year.
“Today’s talks are a breakthrough and a good beginning is already half of the success,” Hong Kong Finance Secretary John Tsang (曾俊華) said yesterday at a Hong Kong-Taiwan inter-city forum, the first between governments of the two sides held in the city.
Taiwan, Hong Kong and Guangdong and Fujian provinces should form a regional economic alliance to improve their competitiveness, Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) said on Tuesday after meeting in Hong Kong with Stephen Lam (林瑞麟), the city’s secretary for constitutional and mainland affairs.
Cathay United to buy debt
Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行), a subsidiary under Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), plans to buy back part of its US$500 million in overseas subordinated debts, issued in 2005 with a 5.5 percent interest rate, before May 12, the bank’s exchange filing on Tuesday.
The bank will put down no more than US$125 million to redeem the 15-year debts ahead of its 2020 maturity date with a likely acquiring price of between US$820 and US$920 for every US$1,000 in debt, its exchange filing said.
The bank said that it would organize a fair Dutch auction to negotiate the acquiring price.
A Dutch auction is a type of auction were the auctioneer begins with a high asking price, which is lowered until participants are willing to accept the auctioneer’s price, or a predetermined reserve price (the seller’s minimum acceptable price) is reached.
New Office coming next year
Microsoft Corp’s next version of its Office desktop programs will reach consumers next year, though not likely in conjunction with the Windows 7 operating system.
Microsoft is set to announce today that Office 2010 will be finished and ready to send to manufacturers in the first half of next year.
From there, it can take six weeks to four months or more for the programs to reach PC users, said Chris Capossela, a senior vice president in the Microsoft group that makes Office.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by