The nation’s stock market watchdog Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp (TWSE) yesterday said it would launch a preliminary inquiry into possible insider trading or incorrect information disclosure linked to the merger of the nation’s major panel makers, Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子) and Innolux Display Corp (群創光電).
The two companies unveiled the merger plan on Saturday morning, ending speculation about a tie-up.
The merger, estimated at nearly NT$200 billion (US$6.2 billion) with a 22 percent premium on Chi Mei’s closing price on Friday, will create a new entity called Chimei Innolux Corp (奇美電子), which will be strong enough to challenge the leading position of AUO Optronics Corp (友達光電), the world’s No. 3 liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panel maker.
“We launch inquiries if we find anything unusual such as stock trading or anything abnormal when it comes to big things like mergers,” TWSE spokesman Stanley Chu (朱士廷) said by telephone.
“We will start an inquiry [into the timeline of the merger],” Chu said.
Two days before the merger was announced, Chi Mei trading volume spiked to 142 million shares on Thursday and 184 million shares on Friday, four times and five times higher than its averaged daily turnover of 34.7 million shares in the first eight trading days of the month respectively, information on TWSE’s Web site showed.
Executives at Chi Mei, the nation’s No. 2 maker of LCD panels used in PCs and TVs, and Innolux, the world’s No. 2 maker of LCD PC monitors, were tight-lipped before the announcement and tried to quash speculation of insider trading, reliable sources said.
Innolux, a Miaoli-based subsidiary of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) — the world’s biggest contract electronics manufacturer — announced on Saturday a swap of one share for 2.05 shares of Chi Mei, the deal’s terms showed.
One day prior to the merger announcement, Chi Mei in a statement sent to the Taiwan Stock Exchange denied media reports about its planned merger with Innolux.
“It is purely media speculation. At the moment, the company does not have such a [merger] plan as the report speculated,” Chi Mei said at the time.
Chu said the statement appeared incompatible with what the company was planning.
“We will make inquiries into this part on Monday,” Chu said.
Shares of Innolux and Chi Mei closed at NT$47 and NT$18.8 respectively on Friday.
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data center projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically made artificial intelligence (AI) chips, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities have ordered such data centers that are less than 30 percent complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage would be decided on a case-by-case basis, the sources said. The move could represent one of China’s most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a
MORE WEIGHT: The national weighting was raised in one index while holding steady in two others, while several companies rose or fell in prominence MSCI Inc, a global index provider, has raised Taiwan’s weighting in one of its major indices and left the country’s weighting unchanged in two other indices after a regular index review. In a statement released on Thursday, MSCI said it has upgraded Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country World Index by 0.02 percentage points to 2.25 percent, while maintaining the weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the most closely watched by foreign institutional investors, at 20.46 percent. Additionally, the index provider has left Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country Asia ex-Japan Index unchanged at 23.15 percent. The latest index adjustments are to
RSS