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.
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
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
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in