Change lifts Fubon’s net worth
Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金) yesterday said its net worth increased by NT$25.2 billion (US$826.18 million) to NT$341.7 billion at the end of last year, while net income grew NT$5.8 billion to NT$38.5 billion after it adopted a new accounting policy to better reflect is property value.
Starting this year, listed companies can either book their property value based on the purchasing cost or market value. The latter method requires twice-yearly reappraisals to better reflect property worth.
Neo Solar, Chailease ink pact
Neo Solar Power Corp (新日光), the nation’s largest solar cell maker, yesterday said it had signed an agreement with Chailease Holding Co (中租控股) to sell 71 local photovoltaic power stations, or solar parks, for NT$1.46 billion.
The deal is the first of its kind in Taiwan, as more financial institutions worldwide consider investing in solar farms given their promise of higher returns, Neo Solar said in a statement released yesterday.
Chailease is the nation’s top leasing service provider.
The solar parks, operated by Neo Solar’s subsidiary General Energy Solutions Inc (永旺能源), have a total annual capacity of 22.5 megawatts, the statement showed.
General Energy has received orders to build solar farms in Taiwan, Japan, the US and the UK, the statement said, adding that the company expects to build a total of 80 megawatts in annual capacity this year.
Vibo transaction postponed
Taiwan Star Telecom Corp (台灣之星), a 4G service provider, yesterday said its board had approved a proposal to postpone the transaction date of a merger-and-acquisition (M&A) deal to absorb local telecom operator Vibo Telecom Inc (威寶電信) by one month.
Taiwan Star said it has yet to receive approval from the nation’s telecom industry regulator, which is still reviewing the deal.
The closing date has been rescheduled to Oct. 31.
In November last year, Vibo’s major shareholders, Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶電腦) and Kinpo Electronics Inc (金寶電子), agreed to sell their unprofitable holdings in Vibo to Taiwan Star in a NT$4 billion share-swap deal.
LG launches tablet in Taiwan
LG Electronics Inc launched a new 8-inch tablet computer in Taiwan on Monday, but the South Korean electronics maker said it would not release any tablets that can support the full spectrum of 4G bandwidths in the country until next year.
The LG G Tablet 8.0 has an IPS display with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 1.2GHz quad-core processor, 16-gigabyte internal memory and a 4,200mAh battery.
The 4G model will only support the 900MHz and 1,800MHz frequency bands in Taiwan, meaning it will not be compatible with the long-term evolution (LTE) network on the 700MHz band that is used by some new entrants to Taiwan’s 4G market, such as Asia Pacific Telecom Corp (亞太電信).
Returning to Taiwan’s tablet market in November last year after a two-year absence, LG has sold about 20,000 tablets in Taiwan this year and expects the number to hit 30,000 units by the end of the year.
YungShin forms China venture
Generic drug maker YungShin Global Holding Corp (永信) yesterday said it had formed a three-way venture in China with active pharmaceutical ingredient maker Formosa Laboratories Inc (台耀化學) and China-based drug maker Sichuan Neijiang Huixin Pharmaceutical Co (四川內江匯鑫製藥) to expand into the Chinese market.
The new entity is to have an initial capital of US$23 million. YungShin will have a 35 percent share.
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
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],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained