To reduce risk, Green Energy Technology Inc (綠能科技), the nation’s top solar wafer maker, yesterday said that it planned to sell as many as 60 million shares to public investors either at home or overseas, rather than to private investors as originally planned.
The company’s announcement came after the Financial Supervisory Commission tightened its rules on the private placement of shares by public firms to safeguard shareholders’ interests.
The regulator bars companies that make profits from selling shares via private placements unless they obtain prior approval from the commission.
Green Energy posted net profits of NT$633 million (US$19.8 million), or NT$3.63 per share, for the first half of the year, compared with losses of NT$98.8 million a year ago.
“We hope to raise the funds as planned. We do not have any example to follow after the rule takes effect,” Green Energy spokesperson Christine Chen (陳婷婷) said by telephone.
Green Energy originally hoped to introduce new strategic partners by selling shares to potential investors — primarily its customers — via private placements, Chen said. She declined to disclose the names of potential investors.
Those investors could still subscribe to Green Energy shares via a public offering and they would not be required to hold the shares for a fixed period, she said.
The solar wafer maker planned to use the proceeds to buy equipment and expand capacity to meet fast-growing customer demand.
Green Energy is set to hold a ground-breaking ceremony for new solar wafer production lines, which cost the firm NT$5.77 billion on Friday.
Yesterday, Green Energy said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange that the board had approved the proposal to cancel a Nov. 16 special shareholder’s meeting to discuss the sale of its shares to private investors.
Green Energy shareholders gave the go-ahead to the share sale on June 4.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is