TAIEX ends flat on profit-taking
The TAIEX was little changed yesterday after profit-taking emerged around the 8,200 level, dealers said.
The benchmark index fell 2.1 points, or 0.02 percent, to close at 8,189.44, after moving between 8,173.26 and 8,211.42 on turnover of NT$99.25 billion (US$3.16 billion).
The market opened up 0.13 percent on follow-through buying from Monday, but sentiment turned cautious as investors took hints from Wall Street’s overnight fall, dealers said.
A total of 2,227 stocks closed down, while 1,389 closed up and 370 were unchanged.
Evergreen orders seven ships
Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運) placed a US$721 million order for container ships with Samsung Heavy Industries Co, as Asia’s largest container line works through plans to buy 100 new vessels.
Evergreen Group’s listed unit ordered seven vessels, each able to carry 8,000 standard 20-foot containers, it said in a stock exchange statement yesterday.
The company didn’t give delivery dates for the vessels, which will cost US$103 million each.
Radium Life wins land auction
Real estate developer Radium Life Tech Co (日勝生) yesterday won the right to lease, develop and operate for 50 years a plot of land owned by the Taipei City Government.
Radium Life offered NT$1.2 billion (US$37.5 million) for the 406 ping (1,340m²) lot on Fuxing S Road Sec 1 in yesterday’s auction.
The final bid represented a 92 percent premium over the NT$620 million floor price set by the city government.
The bidding attracted more than 10 bidders from the real estate and life insurance industries.
Radium Life said it planned to develop the property into a service apartment.
Acer tablet to use Android
Acer Inc (宏碁) plans to release a tablet computer using Google Inc’s Android system and featuring a 10-inch screen in the first quarter, said Scott Lin (林顯郎), president of Acer’s Taiwan operations.
Qualcomm Inc or Nvidia Corp will likely be its chip supplier, he said in an interview yesterday.
He added that Acer might decide not to offer a 7-inch model.
Jim Wong (翁建仁), head of IT products division, said in a June 18 interview, that the firm planned to release a 7-inch tablet before the end of the year.
Asahi to buy stake in Ting Hsin
Asahi Breweries Ltd will invest US$520 million for a 6.54 percent stake in Ting Hsin (Cayman Islands) Holding Corp (頂新) — a packaged food maker and distributor in China — as part of its strategy to expand in the world’s most populous country.
The investment is part of an alliance with Japanese trading company Itochu Corp, the brewer said in a statement yesterday.
Asahi will also sell an 8 percent stake in its 40 percent-owned venture, Tingyi-Asahi Beverages Holdings Co, to Ting Hsin for US$520 million.
Through the alliance, Asahi and Itochu, which bought 20 percent of Ting Hsin in 2008, will sell health food in China and Taiwan, the statement said.
NT down on ‘intervention’
The New Taiwan dollar closed down yesterday on signs that the central bank bought the US currency in the final minutes of trading, two traders familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity.
The NT dollar rose as much as 0.3 percent earlier yesterday, but fell 0.1 percent to close at NT$31.50 versus the US dollar, according to Taipei Forex Inc. It was trading 0.2 percent stronger at NT$31.41 four minutes before trading ended.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the