Asia Cement Corp (亞洲水泥), the nation’s No. 2 cement producer, yesterday said it aims to increase its market share in five major Chinese cities to above 30 percent through mergers and acquisitions.
The company plans to boost its market share in Wuhan, Hubei Province; Nanchang, Jiangxi Province; Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province; Chengdu, Sichuan Province; and Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, it said.
To achieve the goal, the firm is looking to acquire factories in Wuhan that can produce 568,000 tonnes of cement a year and factories in Nanchang that can turn out 240,000 tonnes a year, it said.
Asia Cement yesterday also maintained its target to boost combined annual capacity from its plants on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to 50 million tonnes by the end of 2016, from 40 million tonnes now, Douglas Hsu (徐旭東), chairman of Asia Cement and Far Eastern Group (遠東集團), said at the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting.
He added that it would be easier to reach the goal through mergers.
Chang Tsai-hsiung (張才雄), vice chairman of Asia Cement (China) Holdings Corp (亞泥中國), a subsidiary of Asia Cement, said the company favors cement companies that have sound financials.
“We cannot acquire a company that will be a burden to Asia Cement,” Chang said.
Last quarter, the company registered a profit of NT$1.44 billion (US$47.97 million), or NT$0.47 per share, up from NT$1.22 billion, or NT$0.4 per share, the previous year, according to the company’s filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The company expects its profit this year to be higher than last year’s NT$6.81 billion, or NT$2.21 per share, aided by its acquisition of Sichuan Lanfeng Cement Co (四川蘭豐水泥) last month and higher product prices this year.
Shareholders also approved Asia Cement’s appointment of three independent board members — former Taipei mayor Huang Ta-chou (黃大洲), former Taiwan Stock Exchange chairman Schive Chi (薛琦) and former Financial Supervisory Commission chairman Gordon Chen (陳樹).
“We need experts from different fields to improve the company’s operations,” Hsu said.
Shareholders also approved the company’s plan to pay a cash dividend of NT$1.80 per share and a stock dividend of 2 percent, based on the company’s earnings per share of NT$2.21 last year.
Commenting on the company’s operations in Vietnam, Hsu said he believed the anti-China sentiment would gradually cool down because Vietnam would not benefit from it.
Hsu added that he was willing to invest more in Taiwan instead of Vietnam if the government could allow the group to employ more foreign workers if it could not find enough local workers.
Asia Cement shares slid 0.38 percent to NT$39.50 yesterday, underperforming the TAIEX, which edged up 0.07 percent, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
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],”