TAIEX rises 0.88 percent
The TAIEX closed up 0.88 percent yesterday, boosted by the strong performance of electronics and financial stocks, dealers said.
The weighted index rose 75.61 points to 8,685.47 on turnover of NT$120.33 billion (US$4.1 billion).
The rebound came as institutional investors continued to dump large cap stocks to lock in recent gains on the previous trading day.
A total of 2,342 stocks closed up and 1,959 down, while 349 remained unchanged.
The machinery and electronics sectors scored the highest gains, climbing 1.4 percent, and financial firms rose 0.8 percent.
EQT fund acquires GTV
EQT Partners AB said its EQT Greater China II Fund has acquired local firm Gala TV (GTV, 八大電視) with the television company’s chief executive officer Lin Poa-chuan (林柏川) as a co-investor, according to a statement by EQT yesterday.
Carina Chai, chief financial officer at EQT Partners Asia Ltd in Hong Kong, declined to give the value of the stake bought from MBK Partners Ltd.
Beldare looks to boost VW sales
The local distributor of Europe’s largest automaker, Volkswagen AG (VW), yesterday announced an aggressive sales goal for this year that is nearly 50 percent higher than the record number of vehicles it sold in the local market last year.
Beldare Motors Ltd plans to sell 12,000 vehicles nationwide this year after posting record sales of 8,388 units last year, Huang Chi-li (黃齊力), managing director of the firm, told reporters.
The company set the ambitious sales goal based on its bullish outlook for the nation’s economy.
Volkswagen will launch a total of 35 car models of various sizes nationwide this year, Huang said.
BOT board approves agreement
The board of the government-owned Bank of Taiwan (BOT, 台灣銀行) yesterday approved the plan to sign a cooperation agreement with China’s Bank of Nanjing (南京銀行) to help expand into the Chinese market, the domestic lender said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The bank, a subsidiary of Taiwan Financial Holdings Co (台灣金控), did not supply cooperation details. It still needs approval from the Financial Supervisory Commission before inking the agreement.
ProMOS denies debt talks
ProMOS Technologies Inc (茂德科技) isn’t in talks with Elpida Memory Inc on a merger or business integration, spokesman Ben Tseng (曾邦助) said by telephone yesterday, responding to a Yomiuri Shimbun report on Saturday.
There’s also no talks with the government or banks to forgive debt, Tseng said.
Hsinchu-based ProMOS is in talks with the government and creditor banks to forgive debt to meet requirements for business integration with Elpida, the Yomiuri reported, without saying where it got the information.
Central bank issues CDs
The central bank issued NT$492.2 billion in certificates of deposit yesterday, less than the NT$494.55 billion that matured, the monetary authority said on its Web site.
The central bank sold 30-day certificates at 0.74 percent, 91-day at 0.78 percent and 182-day at 0.88 percent, according to the central bank’s statement.
NT dollar drops NT$0.99
The New Taiwan dollar dropped against the US dollar yesterday, down NT$0.99 to close at NT$29.329 per US dollar as foreign investors continued selling off the local currency, dealers said.
Turnover totaled US$1.158 billion during the trading session.
The NT dollar opened at NT$29.250 and moved between NT$29.141 and NT$29.520 before the close.
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
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
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