Shenzhen, China-based Keen High Technologies Ltd (天鵬盛電子), founded in 1992 and chaired by Arthur Wang (王仁茂), yesterday began trading on the Emerging Stock Market, with plans to move to the over-the-counter (OTC), or GRETAI Securities Market, in six months.
Keen High, the world’s third-largest manufacturer of MP3 and MP4 players with a 10 percent share of the global market of 1.8 million units annually, rose 2.9 percent to close at NT$25 on its first trading day.
Expressing confidence in his company’s prospects as the demand for electronic gadgets such as digital photo frames recovers, Wang forecast that revenues this year would post “double-digit growth” and return to 2007 levels, or about NT$4.56 billion (US$142.1 million).
Keen High reported NT$3.48 billion in sales for the first nine months of this year, or nearly 94 percent of its full-year revenues of NT$3.72 billion last year, and a net income of NT$137.5 million, or NT$2.21 per share.
“Next year will be an even better year” for Keen High, said Wang, a 53-year-old Hualien native with a 9.5 percent stake in the company.
Win Smart Co, an investment firm 100 percent-owned by notebook contract maker Wistron Corp (緯創), is the largest institutional stakeholder, with a 12.5 percent share in Keen High, Wang said.
The chairman attributed the company’s robust sales this year to its cost-cutting measures, including up to 40 percent salary cuts for more than 20 company executives, and low-cost raw material supply, which helped the company weather the economic slowdown.
After Keen High, four other China-based Taiwanese businesses — Sino Horizon Holdings Ltd (鼎固開發), Bizlink Holding Inc (貿聯集團), Kelti International Co (克緹國際) and Perfect Chemical Industry Co (佳麗化工) — may soon follow suit and list for trading on the OTC market or the main bourse, said Stephen Chan (陳恩光), executive vice president of Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank (台北富邦銀), whose sister company, Fubon Securities Co (富邦證券), is the adviser to the four companies.
In related news, Dongguan-based Taiwanese bag manufacturer Wilson Group Holdings Ltd (宏盛集團控股) has also inked agreements with KGI Securities Co (凱基證券) in preparation for its planned initial public offering on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 2011, the securities brokerage firm said in a press statement last week.
Wilson, which started out with 180 employees when it was founded in 2001, now has about 7,500 staffers. The company expects to see sales grow between 20 percent and 30 percent next year, the statement said.
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