AU Optronics Corp’s (AUO, 友達光電) shares showed resilience yesterday, as investors shrugged off the flat-panel maker’s decision to price its new American depositary receipts (ADR) next week at a discount, dealers said.
Many investors remained upbeat about AUO’s bottom line after the company’s losses in the first quarter narrowed significantly from the previous quarter in the face of rising demand, they said.
AUO shares rose 0.37 percent to close at NT$13.65, with 211.45 million shares changing hands. They outpaced the TAIEX, which inched up 0.08 percent to close at 8,135.03.
“The market widely expects AUO to turn a profit this year,” Horizon Securities (宏遠證券) analyst Benson Huang (黃重善) said. “Judging from the stock’s performance today, the discount in the ADR pricing has been eclipsed by such optimism.”
In a statement released on Thursday evening, AUO said additional ADRs scheduled to be issued on Tuesday have been priced at US$4.40 per unit, or the equivalent of NT$13.04 per common share.
The pricing represented a 4.1 percent discount to AUO’s closing price in Taipei on Thursday. After the announcement, the company’s ADRs fell 9.2 percent on Wall Street overnight.
AUO said it expects to raise about US$322.2 million from the ADR sale, a figure that could rise as high as US$348.3 million if the issue’s underwriters exercise their over-allotment option in full.
The funds would be used to expand AUO’s production capacity and upgrade its technology, the company said.
“The sell-off of AUO ADRs on Wall Street overnight simply reflected arbitraging by foreign investors, but such a steep decline was not seen on the local bourse today,” Huang said.
AUO incurred a net loss of NT$3.32 billion (US$112 million), or a loss per share of NT$0.36, in the first quarter, compared with a net loss of NT$12.95 billion, or a loss per share of NT$1.39, in the fourth quarter last year.
The first-quarter results were also an improvement over the same period last year, when AUO posted a net loss of NT$13.78 billion, or a loss per share of NT$1.54.
In the January-to-March period, AUO’s display business posted a profit and had an operating margin of 0.2 percent, compared with a minus-3.4 percent margin in the fourth quarter of last year.
“On the back of rising global demand, AUO is likely to break even in the second quarter,” Huang said. “It is possible AUO will post NT$0.3 to NT$0.5 in earnings per share for all of 2013.”
AUO posted a loss per share of NT$6.19 last year, slightly less than the loss per share of NT$6.94 it recorded in 2011.
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six