Airtac International Group (亞德客), a China-based maker of pneumatic products, plans to move into production of electric tools and invest NT$3 billion (US$100.4 million) in a new plant in Greater Tainan.
Construction of the plant is set to begin in the fourth quarter and finish by 2015, chief financial officer Ivan Tsao (曹永祥) said yesterday.
“Sales will grow faster by investing in a new line of business rather than investing in pneumatic products,” Tsao told an investors’ conference in Taipei.
Construction of the plant would lift Airtac’s capital expenditure for this year by NT$1 billion, on top of the 260 million yuan (US$42.36 million) it had originally earmarked, Tsao said.
Last year, the firm’s total capital expenditure stood at 390 million yuan, Tsao said.
The plant will make advanced pneumatic products and electric tools, he said, adding that it is expected to generate revenue of NT$1 billion and break even in 2015 and to double the revenue to NT$2 billion in 2016.
To finance the plan, Airtac is to issue 10 million common shares in the fourth quarter, Tsao said.
The company has not finalized a price for the new shares, which could result in a 6.25 percent stock dilution, as the company has about 150 million shares outstanding now.
Based on yesterday’s closing share price of NT$166.5, the company is likely to raise as much as NT$1.67 billion via the issue.
Airtac last quarter reported a record profit of NT$541 million, or earnings per share of NT$3.37, an increase of 106.5 percent from NT$262.49 million a quarter earlier and up 62.41 percent from NT$333.1 million the previous year.
From January through last month, the company turned a record profit of NT$804 million, or NT$5.01 per share, up 41.5 percent from the previous year, with revenue rising 24 percent to NT$3.5 billion.
Tsao said the company would likely see revenue fall this quarter during the traditionally slow season, but expects the decline to be lower than the 5 to 10 percent decline seen in previous years.
Airtac is the world’s seventh-largest maker of pneumatic products with a market share of less than 2 percent, and aims to become the third-largest with a 10 percent market share by 2020, Tsao said.
To achieve this, the firm will seek to boost sales outside China Tsao said, adding that China accounts for just 15 percent of the global machine-tool market.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
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
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last