INVESTMENT
Teco to list corporate bonds
Motor and home appliance provider Teco Electric & Machinery Co (東元電機) is to list 300 million Chinese yuan (US$48.4 million) in corporate bonds on the local over-the-counter (OTC) market today, financial adviser HSBC Taiwan said on Saturday. The listing of Teco bonds will follow listings of 1 billion yuan in bonds by Chinatrust Commercial Bank and 500 million yuan in bonds by textile maker Far Eastern New Century Co (遠東新世紀) on the OTC market on March 12 and Thursday respectively. Yuan-denominated bonds have been allowed to be sold in Taiwan since Feb. 6, when a cross-strait currency clearing mechanism was put in place which allows banks operating in Taiwan to offer yuan-denominated services. HSBC said Teco’s yuan-denominated bonds, which will have a maturity of three years, carry a coupon rate of 3 percent. Bond buyers will be paid interest once a year, the bank said. Teco’s bond sale is aimed at raising long-term funds, HSBC said, adding that the issuer will use the money as working capital to help strengthen the financial structure of its overseas subsidiaries.
TRADE
Tool exports down: DGBAS
The nation’s machine tool exports last month were NT$9.5 billion (US$318.76 million), down 13.2 percent from the previous year, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said on Thursday. In the first four months of this year, machine tool exports fell by 20.1 percent to NT$32.3 billion from a year ago, the DGBAS said in a statement posted on its Web site. Exports to China, the largest export destination of the sector, last month declined 7.6 percent year-on-year to NT$3.6 billion and fell by 19.5 percent year-on-year to NT$10.8 billion in the first four months, it said.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure