SMARTPHONES
Silitech to buy back shares
Handset keypad supplier Silitech Technology Corp (閎暉) yesterday said its board decided to implement a stock buyback plan beginning yesterday and running through July 21. Shares closed 1.32 percent higher at NT$23 yesterday before the company unveiled its buyback plan. The board has agreed to buy back up to 10 million shares, or 5.28 percent of total outstanding shares, at a price of NT$16.1 to NT$35.45 per share, Silitech said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The company plans to spend up to NT$2.74 billion (US$89.7 million) on the buyback and will transfer the shares to employees in a bid to “boost employee morale,” the filing said.
RETAIL
Breeze Group founder dies
Upscale mall operator Breeze Group (微風集團) yesterday confirmed its founder and chairman Paul Liao (廖偉志) has died at the age of 67. Breeze executive director Henry Liao (廖鎮漢) said in a letter to company employees that his father died at home on Wednesday, attended by close family members. The group, which runs several Breeze Center (微風廣場) malls, said that Paul Liao died of an illness, but did not disclose further details.
INVESTMENT FUNDS
FSC’s Wang to chair TIGF
The semi-official Taiwan Insurance Guaranty Fund (TIGF, 保險安定基金) yesterday said its board decided to invite Financial Supervisory Commission Vice Chairwoman Jennifer Wang (王儷玲) to head the fund after former chairman Chu Yun-peng (朱雲鵬) completed his tenure on Thursday. The fund expects that, under Wang’s leadership, Cathay Life Insurance Co Ltd (國泰人壽) will be on track to complete its recent purchases of insolvent Global Life Insurance Co (國寶人壽) and Singfor Life Insurance Co (幸福人壽). Wang is also to help facilitate communications between the fund, the financial regulator and the local insurance industry, according to a TIGF statement.
BANKING
Dome exposure ‘manageable’
The Taipei City Government’s order to Farglory Land Development Co (遠雄建設) to shut down construction of the Taipei Dome this week is expected to create a negative sentiment for the financial sector in the near term, but potential earnings overhang for banks with credit exposure to the land developer is still manageable, JPMorgan Securities Ltd said in a note yesterday. JPMorgan said the syndicated loan of NT$15.4 billion from 11 banks led by Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐銀行) is collateralized by the Taipei Dome itself and related surface rights. The brokerage said such credit exposure is, in general, less than 0.1 percent of the total loan, while a 100 percent provision is expected to affect no more than 10 percent of creditor banks’ earnings this year.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Industry continues to grow
The book-to-bill ratio for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers dropped to 1.04 last month as growth in billings surpassed bookings, semiconductor industry association SEMI said yesterday. This marked the fourth month this year that the ratio stood above one, indicating the industry is still growing. The three-month average of worldwide bookings expanded 12.9 percent to US$1.57 billion last month, from US$1.39 billion in March, SEMI’s data showed. The three-month average of worldwide billings jumped 19.3 percent to US$1.51 billion last month from US$1.27 billion in the prior month.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
The founder of Chinese property giant Evergrande Group (恆大集團) has pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and bribery, a court said yesterday, the latest blow for what was once the country’s leading developer. Evergrande’s rise was propelled by decades of rapid urbanization and rising living standards, but in 2020, its access to credit dramatically narrowed when the government introduced curbs on excessive borrowing and speculation. The company defaulted in 2021 after struggling to repay creditors. Founder Xu Jiayin (許家印), 67, known as Hui Ka Yan in Cantonese, was reportedly held by police in 2023, with Evergrande saying he had been subjected to
NO SHORTCUTS: Asked about Elon Musk’s Terafab initiative, TSMC CEO C.C. Wei said it takes two to three years to build a fab and another one to two to ramp it up Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday raised its revenue growth forecast for this year to above 30 percent, up from the 25 percent it estimated three months earlier, citing extremely robust artificial intelligence (AI)-related chip demand. “Our customers and customers’ customers, who are mainly cloud service providers, continue to send us very positive signals and outlook,” TSMC chairman and CEO C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at an earnings conference. The company also hiked its capital expenditure for this year toward the higher end of its forecast, or US$56 billion, as it aims to step up advanced chip capacity expansions, such as
Taiwan is attracting a growing number of foreign jobseekers as companies increasingly recruit overseas talent to ease labor shortages and expand global reach, recruitment platform 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said yesterday. More than 40,000 foreign nationals searched for jobs in Taiwan through the platform last year, a 28 percent increase from a year earlier, the company said. Malaysians accounted for the largest share of overseas jobseekers at 12.2 percent, followed by Indonesians at 11.9 percent and Vietnamese at 10.8 percent. Indonesian applicants surged more than 50 percent year-on-year, while Vietnamese jobseekers rose by more than 30 percent. Applicants from the
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