Nation is No. 5 net creditor
The nation’s international investments recorded a net asset position of US$850.9 billion as of the end of last year, making Taiwan the fifth-largest net creditor after Japan, China, Germany and Switzerland, the central bank said yesterday.
A nation’s international investment position is the balance sheet of the stock of residents’ financial assets and liabilities to the rest of the world.
Last year’s figures were up US$44.9 billion, or 5.6 percent, from US$8.6 billion recorded a year earlier, and marked the highest level in history, the central bank said in its latest report.
This was attributable to increases both in banks’ overseas deposits and in investment in overseas debt securities by insurance companies, the report said.
Taiwan’s total external assets grew by US$131.2 billion, or 10 percent, to US$1,437.9 billion at the end of last year from a year earlier, with total external liabilities standing at US$587 billion, up 17.3 percent from 2012.
TWi targets UK holding firm
TWi Pharmaceuticals Inc (安成), which focuses on developing specialty generic prescription drugs for the US market, yesterday said its board had approved a plan to establish a holding company in the UK.
The company plans to spend no more than US$20 million in setting up the holding company, according to its filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The move aims to help development of injectable medicines while diversifying operational risks, the filing said. The investment still needs approval from the Investment Commission under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, it said.
MediaTek Inc adds real estate
Handset chip developer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) on Thursday signed an agreement with Neo Solar Power Corp (新日光) to buy the solar-cell maker’s property in Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學工業園區) for NT$410 million (US$13.67 million).
MediaTek said the company plans to use the property for self-use office buildings, a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange said.
Neo Solar said it would book a NT$70 million gain from the property disposal as the company continues working to revitalize its idle assets.
Analysts upbeat on FPCB firms
Three major Taiwanese suppliers of Apple Inc’s flexible printed circuit boards (FPCBs) may have the worst behind them after posting flat to slightly better sales results for last month, analysts said.
Based on companies’ filings with the Taiwan Stock Exchange, Career Technology Co’s (嘉聯益) sales registered increases of 5.8 percent month-on-month and 29.6 percent year-on-year to NT$1.14 billion, while Zhen Ding Technology Holding Ltd (臻鼎) posted a 1.1 percent monthly decrease, but 15 percent annual increase in sales to NT$5.24 billion last month.
Flexium Interconnect Inc (台郡), meanwhile, saw sales rise 16.8 percent from April, but fall 21.6 percent from May last year to NT$709 million.
GioVision dividends approved
Digital surveillance equipment supplier GioVision Inc (奇偶) on Thursday said shareholders approved a plan to distribute a cash dividend of NT$7.2 per share and a stock dividend of 10 percent after earnings grew 14.72 percent to NT$582.19 million (US$19.38 million) last year, its highest since 2008.
The dividend payout translates into a cash payout ratio of 78.69 percent and a cash and stock payout ratio of 89.62 percent, based on the company’s earnings per share of NT$9.15 for last year.
In the first five months of the year, cumulative sales totaled NT$921.07 million, up 3.54 percent from a year earlier.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by