The nation’s listed companies last year raised less funds on the open market than a year earlier, due to rising interest rates, the Financial Supervisory Commission said yesterday.
Listed companies raised a combined total of NT$570.06 billion (US$18.19 billion) in both domestic and foreign capital markets last year, down 30.57 percent from NT$821.04 billion in 2013, the commission said in a statement.
“Several companies, such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co [TSMC, 台積電] and China Steel Corp [CSC, 中鋼], launched large-scale fund-raising in 2013,” Securities and Futures Bureau Deputy Director Wang Yung-hsin (王詠心) told a media briefing. “By comparison, there were fewer large-scale fund-raising events last year, which led to a decline in the total funding amount.”
There were 361 public fund-raising events last year, up from 336 a year earlier, data showed.
Wang said the decline in fund-raising did not necessarily indicate that industries had reached the limits of capital demand, or justify pessimism over the economic outlook, as firms can still get funds through bank loans or other means.
However, the decline in funds raised last year does reflect the relatively lower interest rates last year from a year earlier, as some firms chose to adopt a wait-and-see attitude, she added.
The total amount of funds raised through private placement deals reached NT$107.98 billion last year, up 15.27 percent from NT$93.68 billion in 2013, the commission said in the statement.
Overall, the nation’s listed companies raised 91.37 percent of their funds domestically, and only 8.63 percent overseas, an indication that most firms still prefer raising capital locally, the commission said.
Overall, the companies used 42.32 percent of the funds for debt repayments, 31.49 percent for working capital and 21.41 percent to expand factory facilities, the commission’s statistics showed.
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