Memorychip maker Winbond Electronics Corp (華邦電子) yesterday announced that it has signed a NT$7 billion (US$235.06 million) five-year syndicated loan agreement with 17 domestic banks to finance equipment procurement for technology upgrades.
“Along with the syndication loan, advanced technology migration and forthcoming 46 nanometer [nm] products, mass production will enable the company to provide a complete product mix to world-class customers,” the company said in a statement.
The syndicated loan was led by Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行), Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中國信託商業銀行), First Commercial Bank (第一銀行), Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合作金庫銀行), Taishin International Bank (台新銀行), E.Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行), Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank Co (台北富邦銀行), DBS Bank in Taiwan (星展銀行) and Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行), with another eight financial institutions also participating.
The loan subscription was more than NT$10 billion and the final facility amount was closed at NT$7 billion, reflecting high support from financial institutions for the company’s credit rating and positive business prospects, Bank of Taiwan said in a statement.
Winbond posted NT$387.08 million, or NT$0.11 a share, in net profit for the first half of the year, company financial data showed.
It showed better profitability than Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), the nation’s top DRAM maker, which reported NT$16.93 billion in net losses for the first half, and Powerchip Technology Corp (力晶科技), which changed its business focus to non-PC DRAM chips recently and posted NT$6.48 billion in net losses for the same period.
The company has continued to focus on Specialty Memory, with three major product lines of Specialty DRAM, Mobile RAM and NOR Flash, company statement showed.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last