Green Energy Technology Inc (綠能科技), the nation’s biggest solar wafer supplier, yesterday said it had won shareholder approval to issue as many as US$50 million in convertible bonds, mainly to finance the expansion of a wafer slicing plant and to repay debt.
The chipmaker also planned to use part of the proceeds to buy raw materials from overseas suppliers, a company statement filed with the Taiwan Stock Exchange said.
It has hired Citigroup Global Markets Ltd and Deutsche Bank AG’s Hong Kong branch to handle the bond issue.
In addition, Green Energy shareholders also gave the go-ahead to a plan to create an extra 50 million common shares in the form of global depositary receipts, which would help the company raise NT$585 million (US$17.9 million) based on the stock’s closing price of NT$117 yesterday.
During the annual shareholders’ meeting, shareholders also approved a proposal to distribute a NT$5 per common share cash dividend and a 20 percent stock dividend based on last year’s earnings of NT$1.4 billion, or NT$13.91 a share.
Separately, the nation’s biggest solar cell maker, Motech Industries Inc (茂迪), said yesterday that its board had approved a plan to double its stake in polysilicon supplier AE Polysilicon Corp to 50.2 percent by subscribing for US$25 million in the company’s convertible bonds.
The move aimed “to increase the company’s presence in the solar industry and obtain a stable supply of raw materials to make solar cells,” company spokesman Norman Shen (沈楨林) said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Motech will subscribe for 3.74 million AE Polysilicon preference shares at US$6.68 per share. Motech currently holds a 25.38 percent stake in the Philadelphia-based polysilicon supplier.
The investment will be made via two Motech subsidiaries, Power Islands Ltd and Cheer View Investment Ltd, the company filing said.
The Tainan-based solar cell maker has inked a supply agreement with AE Polysilicon under which the firm will supply a total of 2,500 tonnes of polysilicon to Motech by 2011.
Green Energy shares fell 2.9 percent to NT$117, while Motech shares jumped 3.48 percent to close at NT$119 yesterday.
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