Namchow Chemical Industrial Co (南僑化工), the nation’s main supplier of edible oils, detergents and frozen dough, aims to auction five plots of land later this year to finance expansion plans in China, company executives said yesterday.
Namchow chairman Alfred Chen (陳飛龍) said the company intends to raise at least NT$3.03 billion (US$102.55 billion) from the plots located in Datong District (大同), Taipei City.
With a total area of 2,809 ping (9,270m2), the plots currently house the company’s headquarters and northern operation offices, Chen told a media briefing.
Most of the property is idle after the company moved production to Taoyuan County in 1992, he said.
Chen, whose company also produces ice cream products, juices and cookies through subsidiaries, and markets the products of Nabisco, Kellogg’s and Haagen-Dazs in Taiwan, is upbeat the luxury tax would not affect the upcoming auction.
“While the levy will weigh on the market, it will not suppress real demand for real-estate properties,” Chen said.
The government plans to tax short-term property transactions, subjecting real estate resold within two years of purchase to a 10 percent luxury levy. The tax rate would rise to 15 percent of the trading value if the property were sold within one year of purchase.
Namchow has yet to set a date for the auction, which first needs to obtain approval from shareholders, company general manager Kevin Lee (李勘文) said. The company will call a shareholders’ conference for April 29 on the sale plan, he added.
The proceeds will be used to strengthen production facilities in China, where Namchow ranks as the second-largest maker of edible oil products, Lee said.
The 60-year-old company plans to spend US$102 million building a factory in Shanghai between this year and 2015 to meet growing demand, Lee said.
“We need a new production line in three years as existing plants in Tianjin and Guangzhou are already running at full capacity,” he said.
Namchow entered China in 1996 and the market generated about 60 percent of the parent’s total revenue of NT$9.6 billion last year, Lee said.
The company also plans to spend US$30 million in Taiwan in the next two years to turn its Taoyuan and Tainan plants into tourism factories, Lee said.
The investment comes in line with the government’s effort to promote the amalgamation of local industry with culture and tourism, he said.
International real-estate consultancy DTZ (戴德梁行), which will organize the auction on Namchow’s behalf, said potential buyers could file rezoning requests and turn the plots into a residential complex.
“Land plots of such a scale are increasingly rare in the capital,” DTZ general manager Billy Yen (顏炳立) said.
He expects the auction to draw heated competition as the market remains awash with idle funds.
Namchow shares closed up at its 7 percent daily limit yesterday as the disposal of the property purchased four decades ago is expected to yield a sizable profit.
Shares of Namchow closed limit-up at NT$42.8 on the local bourse, outperforming the benchmark TAIEX’s 1.09 percent rise.
ELECTRONICS BOOST: A predicted surge in exports would likely be driven by ICT products, exports of which have soared 84.7 percent from a year earlier, DBS said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast for Taiwan this year to 4 percent from 3 percent, citing robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related exports and accelerated shipment activity, which are expected to offset potential headwinds from US tariffs. “Our GDP growth forecast for 2025 is revised up to 4 percent from 3 percent to reflect front-loaded exports and strong AI demand,” Singapore-based DBS senior economist Ma Tieying (馬鐵英) said in an online briefing. Taiwan’s second-quarter performance beat expectations, with GDP growth likely surpassing 5 percent, driven by a 34.1 percent year-on-year increase in exports, Ma said, citing government
SMART MANUFACTURING: The company aims to have its production close to the market end, but attracting investment is still a challenge, the firm’s president said Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said its long-term global production plan would stay unchanged amid geopolitical and tariff policy uncertainties, citing its diversified global deployment. With operations in Taiwan, Thailand, China, India, Europe and the US, Delta follows a “produce at the market end” strategy and bases its production on customer demand, with major site plans unchanged, Delta president Simon Chang (張訓海) said on the sidelines of a company event yesterday. Thailand would remain Delta’s second headquarters, as stated in its first-quarter earnings conference, with its plant there adopting a full smart manufacturing system, Chang said. Thailand is the firm’s second-largest overseas
‘REMARKABLE SHOWING’: The economy likely grew 5 percent in the first half of the year, although it would likely taper off significantly, TIER economist Gordon Sun said The Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) yesterday raised Taiwan’s GDP growth forecast for this year to 3.02 percent, citing robust export-driven expansion in the first half that is likely to give way to a notable slowdown later in the year as the front-loading of global shipments fades. The revised projection marks an upward adjustment of 0.11 percentage points from April’s estimate, driven by a surge in exports and corporate inventory buildup ahead of possible US tariff hikes, TIER economist Gordon Sun (孫明德) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy likely grew more than 5 percent in the first six months
SUPPLY RESILIENCE: The extra expense would be worth it, as the US firm is diversifying chip sourcing to avert disruptions similar to the one during the pandemic, the CEO said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) on Wednesday said that the chips her company gets from supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) would cost more when they are produced in TSMC’s Arizona facilities. Compared with similar parts from factories in Taiwan, the US chips would be “more than 5 percent, but less than 20 percent” in terms of higher costs, she said at an artificial intelligence (AI) event in Washington. AMD expects its first chips from TSMC’s Arizona facilities by the end of the year, Su said. The extra expense is worth it, because the company is
RSS