Shinkong Synthetic Fibers Corp (新光合成纖維), which makes polyester fibers and plastics, said yesterday that its profit would rise by more than 10 percent this year on the back of income from selling assets and rising market demand.
The company booked NT$133.66 million (US$4.46 million) in income from selling a plot of land in Taipei in February. As a result, its profit last quarter doubled from NT$195.51 million, or NT$0.11 per share, a year ago to NT$596.99 million, or NT$0.35 per share, according to a company filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
INSURANCE
Shinkong Synthetic is also expected to receive an insurance payment of about NT$300 million this year in relation to a factory that burned down in 2012, chairman Eric Wu (吳東昇) said yesterday after the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting.
Shinkong Synthetic plans to sell another property in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山區), if it can find a buyer willing to pay about NT$2.9 billion, Wu said.
Wu said market sentiment for its core businesses in the first half of this year is higher than it was a year ago, and that the factory utilization rate has been at 100 percent since March, higher than last year’s 79.03 percent.
CAPITAL INVESTMENTS
The company plans to spend NT$3 billion to double the capacity of its TacBright Optronics Corp (達輝光電) subsidiary, which makes triacetate cellulose film, with construction expected to be completed in the first quarter next year, Wu said.
The company expects to spend NT$3 billion to build a new production line for Shinkong Materials Technology Co (新科光電), another subsidiary which makes polyester films, Wu said, adding that the company plans to build another new production line for the subsidiary costing the same amount in the next two years.
Wu said Shinkong Synthetic is to double the capacity of a joint venture with Invista Inc this year, without disclosing the size of the investment.
DIVIDEND
Meanwhile, shareholders yesterday approved the company’s plan to distribute a NT$0.35 cash dividend this year, a payout ratio of 53.85 percent.
Last year, the company reported a profit of NT$1.15 billion, or earnings per share (EPS) of NT$0.65, up 22 percent from NT$665.93 million, or EPS of NT$0.38, the previous year, according to its filing.
RETIREMENT
Asked whether he plans to retire in the near future, Wu, who is 61, said he would consider retiring only after he raises the company’s share price above NT$20.
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
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