FINANCIAL SERVICES
Yuanta to buy Vietnam firm
Yuanta Financial Holding Co (元大金控) said on Thursday that its brokerage unit, Yuanta Securities Co (元大證券), had agreed to acquire Vietnam’s The First Securities Joint Stock Co for 365.5 billion dong (US$12.56 million). The deal, which is pending regulatory approvals, is Yuanta Financial’s latest effort to expand through mergers and acquisitions after the firm signed a deal with New York Life Insurance Co to buy its local subsidiary for NT$100 million (US$3.32 million) on Tuesday.
RETAIL
Perfume battle over
The Intellectual Property Office won a legal battle on Thursday after the Supreme Administrative Court turned down a request to register “La Vie Est Belle” as a trademark for a French perfume. The court supported the office’s ruling in November 2011 rejecting Lancome Parfums et Beaute & Cie SA’s application to register the name as a trademark for one of its products on the grounds that the sentence meaning “life is beautiful” in French is not inherently distinctive.
ELECTRONICS
MStar dividend approved
Shareholders of MStar Semiconductor Inc (晨星半導體), the world’s biggest supplier of chips used in LCD TVs, yesterday approved an NT$6 cash dividend per share, representing a 2.78 percent dividend yield. Last year’s earnings were NT$4.5 billion, or NT$8.53 per share.
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
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],”