REAL ESTATE
Housing slump expected
The transaction volume for residential properties across Taiwan last year was likely to set a 13-year low due to extended weakness in the property market, H&B Realty Co (住商不動產) planning and research director Jessica Hsu (徐佳馨) said yesterday. With home sales remaining sluggish after the Nov. 29 nine-in-one elections, transactions for the whole year might register less than 320,000 units nationwide, the third-lowest level in decades, Hsu said, adding that 289,000 units changed hands in 1991 and 259,000 in 2001. Both Greater Kaohsiung and Greater Taichung saw home transactions decline by 10.99 percent and 5.66 percent respectively last month from November, while transactions in Taipei, New Taipei City and Greater Taoyuan gained 13.66 percent, 11.18 percent and 4.55 percent respectively, according to H&B tallies.
BANKING
Chang Hwa names president
State-run Chang Hwa Commercial Bank (彰化銀行) on Tuesday said its board had agreed to appoint executive vice president James Shih (施建安) as president, after a local banking conglomerate rejected the Ministry of Finance’s offer to name the candidate. The finance ministry on Dec. 10 named Chang Hwa president Chang Ming-daw (張明道) as chairman after the ministry beat the lender’s major shareholder, Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控), and gained control of the lender’s board.
LIFE INSURANCE
Taiwan Life’s Jou leaves
Taiwan Life Insurance Co (台灣人壽保險) on Tuesday said its board approved the resignation of acting president David Jou (周國端), which was to take effect today. Jou, who left China’s Taikang Life Insurance Co (泰康人壽) as chief financial officer in October, would remain a board director of Taiwan Life, a company statement said.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Arthritis drug in pipeline
Taiwan Liposome Co (台灣微脂體), a developer of generic drugs used to treat breast and ovarian cancer, on Tuesday said it had filed an investigational new drug application for TLC599 in Taiwan, a treatment it developed to counter arthritis, especially in small joints such as fingers. Taiwan Liposome said in a press release that if the Food and Drug Administration approves its application, the company would proceed with phase one and phase two clinical trials with about 40 subjects.
MANUFACTURING
Hon Hai wins patent suit
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Monday said that it has won a final ruling in a patent suit against Lotes Suzhou Co (得意精密電子蘇州). Hon Hai and its subsidiary, Foxconn (Kunshan) Computer Connector Co (富士康昆山電腦接插件), said Hon Hai received the final ruling from the Higher People’s Court of Jiangsu Province on Dec. 19, which upheld a ruling by the Nanjing Intermediate People’s Court that Lotes Suzhou infringed Hon Hai’s USB 3.0 patents.
BANKING
HSBC set to offer in China
HSBC Holdings PLC plans to sell the first asset-backed securities by a foreign bank in China as Beijing accelerates development of the market. The bank is to offer 1.35 billion yuan (US$217.5 million) of the notes on Jan. 15, according to a statement on the Chinabond Web site on Tuesday. Banks issued 267.7 billion yuan of notes backed by loans last year, compared with 15.8 billion yuan in 2013, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
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
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
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
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