Thousands of Far Eastern Group employees took to the streets yesterday to protest what they called unjust and illegal interference by the Ministry of Economic Affairs in their company’s long struggle to take control of Pacific Sogo Department Stores Co (太平洋崇光百貨).
The protesters rooted for the group, chanting slogans against the ministry’s approval of a proposal by interim managers from Pacific Distribution Investment Co (太平洋流通), a holding company for the department store chain, to hold a shareholders’ meeting and reshuffle the board in three months.
COURT BATTLE
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Pacific Distribution has been involved in an ongoing court battle with Far Eastern Group (遠東集團) over the ownership of the company. The ministry’s approval is seen by Far Eastern Group as a move that could jeopardize the group’s ownership of Sogo.
Far Eastern Group chairman Douglas Hsu (徐旭東), who originally expressed his wish to participate in the protest, did not show up.
On May 7, he announced that the group would suspend all of its investments in Taiwan following a spat with the ministry’s Department of Commerce over Sogo.
MONEY BACK
The protesters also demanded that the ministry restore six capital injections — totaling NT$4.01 billion — by the group into Pacific Distribution between 2002 and 2008 that were revoked by the commerce department in 2010.
A protester who refused to be named said the ministry has gone overboard to make unjust rulings against Far Eastern Group while the ownership dispute is still proceeding in the courts.
Department of Commerce Director-General Yeh Yun-lung (葉雲龍) said yesterday that the ministry had followed due process when making rulings in the Sogo ownership dispute.
“The ministry followed proper procedures when it revoked the group’s capital injections to Pacific Sogo Department Stores in 2010, as well as approving its rival’s application to hold a shareholders’ meeting and to reshuffle the board,” Yeh said.
He said the commerce department revoked the capital injections because they were the result of a forgery and they had been ruled illegal by the Supreme Administrative Court.
The commerce department also followed due process when it approved Pacific Distribution’s application to hold a shareholders’ meeting and to reshuffle the board because it was done according to the law, Yeh said, adding: “We would not have survived so long if we didn’t follow due process.”
CASH COW
Sogo, the country’s second--largest department store chain, has been a cash cow for Far Eastern Group and therefore the group has a big stake in its ownership.
Yesterday’s street protest was the second by Far Eastern Group employees since the department of commerce on May 4 approved Pacific Distribution’s application to hold a shareholders’ meeting.
In Taipei trading, Far Eastern Group shares dropped 3.56 percent to NT$27.1 yesterday, compared with a decline of 2.18 percent on the benchmark TAIEX.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San