Sharp Corp has agreed to sell three of its overseas factories to Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) for about ￥55 billion (US$667 million), Sankei newspaper said, citing unnamed sources.
The television assembly plants are located in Mexico, Malaysia and Nanjing, China, and sale procedures will start as early as this month, Sankei reported.
Sharp said last month there was “material doubt” about its ability to survive after forecasting a record ￥450 billion, full-year loss on falling demand for its display panels.
Sharp, the maker of Aquos televisions, is selling assets and seeking investment as it cuts salaries and jobs, and offers voluntary retirements as a part of a turnaround plan.
In July, Sharp sold a stake in an LCD factory in Sakai, central Japan, to Foxconn, who will jointly operate the 10th-generation facility, the industry’s most advanced.
Sharp’s talks with Foxconn over a capital tie-up may continue beyond a March deadline, Sharp said last month. Earlier this year, the two reached a preliminary agreement on Foxconn buying a 9.9 percent stake in the Japanese electronics maker for ￥550 a share, or ￥67 billion.
SHARES PLUMMET
Negotiations on a final price have yet to be completed as Sharp’s market value declined almost 75 percent this year, to close yesterday at ￥172 per share.
Sharp president Takashi Okuda said on Nov. 1 that the company is considering various partnership options. Kyodo News said on Nov. 13 that Sharp was in final talks with Intel Corp to receive an investment of as much as ￥40 billion, while the Wall Street Journal said on Tuesday that the company is in talks with Dell Inc to arrange a capital investment of US$240 million.
Sharp hemorrhaged ￥103 billion in cash from operations in the first half of the year. The company may turn to the Japanese government for a bailout, analysts said last month.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves hit a record high at the end of last month, surpassing the US$600 billion mark for the first time, the central bank said yesterday. Last month, the country’s foreign exchange reserves rose US$5.51 billion from a month earlier to reach US$602.94 billion due to an increase in returns from the central bank’s portfolio management, the movement of other foreign currencies in the portfolio against the US dollar and the bank’s efforts to smooth the volatility of the New Taiwan dollar. Department of Foreign Exchange Director-General Eugene Tsai (蔡炯民)said a rate cut cycle launched by the US Federal Reserve
Handset camera lens maker Largan Precision Co (大立光) on Sunday reported a 6.71 percent year-on-year decline in revenue for the third quarter, despite revenue last month hitting the highest level in 11 months. Third-quarter revenue was NT$17.68 billion (US$581.2 million), compared with NT$18.95 billion a year earlier, the company said in a statement. The figure was in line with Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co’s (元大投顧) forecast of NT$17.9 billion, but missed the market consensus estimate of NT$18.97 billion. The third-quarter revenue was a 51.44 percent increase from NT$11.67 billion in the second quarter, as the quarter is usually the peak
The US government on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen companies in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, including offshoots of a US chip firm, accusing the businesses of providing illicit support to Iran’s military or proxies. The US Department of Commerce included two subsidiaries of US-based chip distributor Arrow Electronics Inc (艾睿電子) on its so-called entity list published on the federal register for facilitating purchases by Iran’s proxies of US tech. Arrow spokesman John Hourigan said that the subsidiaries have been operating in full compliance with US export control regulations and his company is discussing with the US Bureau of
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