TAIEX rises 1.91%
Share prices closed higher yesterday with the TAIEX moving up 153.25 points, or 1.91 percent, to close at 8,158.14.
The bourse opened at 8,107.22 and fluctuated between a low of 8,093.14 and a high of 8,168.47 during the day’s trading. Market turnover totaled NT$135.7 billion (US$4.34 billion).
Seven of eight major stock categories gained ground, with financial and banking stocks and plastics and chemicals gaining the most at 2.6 percent, followed by textile issues at 2 percent. Machinery and electronics shares went up 1.7 percent, and food shares moved up 1.4 percent.
Foreign investors and Chinese qualified domestic institutional investors were net buyers of NT$26.81 billion in shares.
ProMOS cutting capital
ProMOS Technologies Inc (茂德科技) said yesterday its board has approved a 65 percent capital reduction plan to improve financial structure.
The nation’s third-biggest chipmaker wants to reduce capital by NT$47.24 billion to NT$25.43 billion, it said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
ProMOS said the capital reduction would boost book value to about NT$8.45 per share from NT$2.9 at the end of last year. In the first nine months alone, the company lost another NT$17.96 billion.
ProMOS’s board also approved three capital increase programs, including sale of maximum 1 billion common shares, 700 million special shares via private placement and a US$5 million fund raising plan.
MOI tackles rising home costs
The Ministry of the Interior will draft a package of regulations to require information on real estate transactions be published regularly, Interior Minister Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) said at a legislative session yesterday.
The ministry would submit its plans to the Cabinet within three months, Jiang said in response to a call by National Chinese Nationalist (KMT) Legislator Lai Shyh-bao’s (賴士葆) for the ministry to make housing transaction data more transparent.
The lawmaker said the high price of housing in urban areas was one of the public’s top 10 complaints last year.
The legislature passed a resolution last year asking the ministry and the Financial Supervisory Commission to regularly publish property prices around the country, in order to prevent inflated valuations by private institutions and consequently higher market prices.
Yahoo-Kimo promotes Chen
Yahoo-Kimo Inc (雅虎奇摩) yesterday announced a management change in which Frank Chen (陳建銘) will replace Charlene Hung (洪小玲) as vice president and managing director as of Saturday.
Hung, a well-known female figure in Taiwan’s online community, has worked for Yahoo-Kimo for 10 years. She is quitting because she is moving to China with her family, the company said in a statement yesterday.
Chen joined the company in 2005 and has served as general manager of the sales group, the statement said. He is expected to lead the company’s e-commerce business and enhance online content, it said.
ASE denies M&A plans
Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光) said yesterday it had not signed merger and acquisition (M&A) agreements with any party,
It would, however, continue to evaluate potential opportunities, the company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
ASE issued the statement after the Chinese-language Commercial Times reported that ASE planned to buy two plants in Singapore and China from EEMS Italia SpA.
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