Gigastorage chair steps down
Solar wafer maker Gigastorage Corp (國碩科技) yesterday said its chairman Jerry Chen (陳繼仁) had resigned due to health problems, and the board had tapped Jimmy Chen (陳繼明) as his successor, in an extraordinary board meeting.
Jerry Chen is to remain a board director of the company, but will take leave to treat his illness, according to a company filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Jimmy Chen, an elder brother of Jerry Chen, is also to assume the position of chairman of Giga Solar Materials Corp (碩禾電子), a solar material manufacturing subsidiary of Gigastorage.
Asustek staff investigated
Taipei prosecutors on Thursday searched Asustek Computer Inc’s (華碩) headquarters in New Taipei City, confiscated boxes of documents and summoned Huang Kuo-hsun (黃國勳) of the company’s open platform business group for questioning over an allegation of receiving kickbacks.
Asustek yesterday confirmed the investigation, saying that it had reported the case to prosecutors.
This is the second time this year that Asustek has reported its employees to prosecutors for investigation. In July, the company accused several high-ranking executives of involvement in an insider trading incident.
NT dollar up, not down
The nominal effective exchange rate (NEER) of the New Taiwan dollar shows an upturn trend for this year, rising 0.66 percent as of the end of last month, the central bank said yesterday, citing data offered by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
The central bank cited the figure in a clarification statement, following various news reports published yesterday that said the NT dollar’s NEER had dropped 0.7 percent for the first eight months.
The bank said the NT dollar’s NEER had in fact shown 0.02 percent growth for the first eight months and a 0.66 percent increase for the first nine months.
In addition, the NT dollar has shown a rising trend, up 6.65 percent since the basis period in 2010, the bank’s data showed.
Restaurant/hotel firm to debut
My Humble House Hospitality Management Consulting Co Ltd (寒舍餐旅管理顧問) is set to debut shares on Monday on the Emerging Stock Market — a preparatory board for the nation’s two main bourses — and plans to apply for official listing on the GRETAI Securities Market by the end of next year.
The operator of several local restaurants and hotels has set its initial public offering (IPO) price at NT$73.
It made a net profit of NT$166 million (US$5.46 million) in the first eight months of this year, or NT$1.4 earnings per share, on a consolidated revenue of NT$2.79 billion.
Oil problem has little impact
Moody’s Investors Service said on Thursday that a problem with the quality of cooking oil sold by one of Tingyi Holding Corp’s (頂益控股) sister companies has no impact on Tingyi’s “Baa1” rating and its stable outlook.
“In Moody’s view, although Cheng-I Food Co (正義股份) and Tingyi both are subsidiaries of Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團), their operations and sourcing of raw material are independent of each other,” the ratings agency said in a statement.
However, the incident could pose some reputational risk for Tingyi, it said.
Textile show a success
The Taipei Innovative Textile Application Show, which closed yesterday at the Taipei World Trade Center’s Nangang Exhibition Hall, attracted 32,000 buyers from about 40 countries, the Taiwan Textile Federation said, adding that the event could generate potential business worth US$60 million.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
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