Taiwan’s capital market could continue to increase its number of initial public offerings (IPO) next year after recording an annual 17 percent jump this year on a backlog of companies seeking investment funds, a report by Ernst & Young said yesterday.
“The growth momentum in the local IPO market remains dynamic going forward,” James Wang (王金來), country managing partner at the international consultancy firm, told a media briefing.
The trend will sustain whoever wins the presidency on Jan. 14, although the pace may slow down if the European debt crisis worsens, making fundraising more difficult, Wang said.
A total of 42 overseas companies are awaiting regulatory approval to list on the local bourse, Wang said, citing Taiwan Stock Exchange statistics.
“If things proceed as planned, the number of IPO launches by foreign firms may exceed that by domestic companies next year,” Wang said.
The government has lent support with eased regulations, said Ian Wang (王彥鈞), a partner at Ernst & Young assurance services.
The government’s recent scrapping of the face-value requirement on foreign firms’ stocks is giving Japanese, US and Singaporean firms a further incentive to list in -Taiwan, although the easing will have little impact on Taiwanese firms in China, Ian Wang said.
The relaxation will save foreign firms the trouble of setting up shell companies in third places to qualify for listing in Taiwan, although such practice is prevalent among Taiwanese firms with operations in China, Ian Wang said, adding that consequently, the latter will not benefit from the policy change.
About 50 firms are expected to apply to list on the emerging stock market, from 45 this year, Ian Wang said, citing the GRETAI Securities Market.
However, Ernst & Young predicted that Taiwan depositary receipts (TDR) will further lose -appeal next year after the number of TDR withdrawals hit a new high this year because of more reasonable estimates of their worth, Ian Wang said.
Further, TDR issuers voiced difficulty adjusting to Taiwan’s monthly earnings disclosure requirements when they need to do so twice a year in other markets, Ian Wang said.
So far this year, the local capital market has recorded 48 IPO deals, compared with 41 for the whole of last year, the report said.
The listing of Tokyo-based chipmaker Elpida Memory Inc’s depositary receipts in Taiwan tops the deals in terms of the capital raised at NT$4.26 billion (US$140.66 million).
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts