Benchmark index closes flat
Taiwan’s benchmark index closed flat yesterday after a tug of war between selling in old economy stocks and bargain hunting in large cap electronics, dealers said.
The TAIEX rose 4.84 points, or 0.06 percent, to 7,928.94, after moving between 7,886.73 and 7,948.73, on turnover of NT$123.35 billion (US$3.87 billion).
The market opened slightly higher, up 1.38 points, despite lingering concerns about the global economic climate, dealers said.
A total of 1,609 stocks closed up and 2,040 down, while 303 remained unchanged.
Sony unit makes Gala bid
A unit of Sony is bidding to buy Taiwanese cable operator Gala Television Corp (八大電視) for about NT$6 billion (US$187 million), reports said.
Internet access provider So-net Entertainment Corp, a Sony affiliate, is vying with up to four other bidders for Gala in a deal expected to be finalized by the end of the month, Dow Jones Newswires said, citing an unnamed source.
The Taipei-based Commercial Times said Sony is offering NT$6 billion against the rival bidders, which include a Swedish private fund and other international investors.
The paper said Gala, which operates four entertainment cable channels, was acquired by private equity fund MBK Partners in 2008 for about NT$4 billion.
Sony spokesman Atsuo Omagari declined to comment on the report.
Nomura helped Tsais: source
Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) and Richard Tsai (蔡明興), brothers who control Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大), hired Nomura Holdings Inc for a loan to help them buy cable TV operator Kbro Co (凱擘) from Carlyle Group, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said.
Tokyo-based Nomura will provide a three to five-year loan of as much as NT$55 billion, the person said, asking not to be identified as the details are private.
Taiwan Mobile, the country’s second-largest phone operator, has not received government approval after agreeing to buy Kbro last year for NT$32.8 billion in stock and cash plus the assumption of NT$24 billion in debt.
Shih says review won’t drag on
Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) said yesterday the ministry’s review on the Chinese investment proposed by AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) will “not drag on for too long.”
He said several internal meetings have been held and a technology review committee is expected to hold a meeting tomorrow to evaluate the LCD maker’s application to build a 7.5-generation production site in China, local media said.
Meanwhile, AU Optronics said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday that it will defend itself against charges of alleged price fixing filed by the US states of Wisconsin, Missouri, Arkansas, Michigan and West Virginia. The LCD maker has hired legal counsel for the case, it said.
NT dollar has ‘dynamic stability’
The New Taiwan dollar’s real effective exchange rate is near its 36-month moving average, indicating it has maintained “dynamic stability,” the nation’s central bank said in a faxed statement yesterday.
The central bank was responding to a magazine report that the currency’s exchange rate of around NT$32 against the US dollar has led to weak domestic demand.
In Taipei trading, the NT dollar rose NT$0.036 to close at NT$31.930 against the US dollar, with a turnover of US$567 million during the trading session.
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