Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said its board had approved a plan to spend as much as US$126 million to acquire Taiwan OmniVision Investment Holding Co Ltd and a 49 percent stake in VisEra Holding Cayman Ltd, both local subsidiaries of OmniVision Technologies Inc
The world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement that the acquisitions are conditional on regulatory approval from related governments, including the US approving a Chinese consortium’s acquisition of OmniVision Technologies, which is based in Santa Clara, California.
TSMC supplies microprocessors for Apple Inc’s iPhone. The company’s proposed purchase of OmniVision Technologies’ local subsidiaries is to help clear a regulatory hurdle for a group of Chinese investors to acquire the firm, as Chinese firms are not permitted to operate semiconductor businesses in Taiwan.
OmniVision Technologies — which provided the rear camera sensor for Apple’s iPhone 4S — in April agreed to a US$1.9 billion acquisition by a Chinese conglomerate that includes Hua Capital Management Co (華資本管理公司), Citi Capital Holdings Ltd (中信資本) and GoldStone Investment Co (金石投資).
TSMC’s proposed deal would allow the Hsinchu-based chipmaker to increase its stake in VisEra Holding to 98.2 percent. VisEra Holding was established as a joint venture between TSMC and OmniVision Technologies.
TSMC’s board yesterday also gave the go-ahead for capital appropriations of roughly US$1.24 billion to expand capacity for advanced technology and packaging and assembly. The capital expenditures are also to cover certain logic capacity and specialty technology spending this quarter, as well as research and development costs.
TSMC plans to spend between US$10.5 billion and US$11 billion on capital expenditure this year, mostly on advanced technologies.
France cannot afford to ignore the third credit-rating reduction in less than a year, French Minister of Finance Roland Lescure said. “Three agencies have downgraded us and we can’t ignore this cloud,” he told Franceinfo on Saturday, speaking just hours after S&P lowered his country’s credit rating to “A+” from “AA-” in an unscheduled move. “Fundamentally, it’s an additional cloud to a weather forecast that was already pretty gray. It’s a call for lucidity and responsibility,” he said, adding that this is “a call to be serious.” The credit assessor’s move means France has lost its double-A rating at two of the
AI BOOST: Although Taiwan’s reliance on Chinese rare earth elements is limited, it could face indirect impacts from supply issues and price volatility, an economist said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) has sharply raised its forecast for Taiwan’s economic growth this year to 5.6 percent, citing stronger-than-expected exports and investment linked to artificial intelligence (AI), as it said that the current momentum could peak soon. The acceleration of the global AI race has fueled a surge in Taiwan’s AI-related capital spending and exports of information and communications technology (ICT) products, which have been key drivers of growth this year. “We have revised our GDP forecast for Taiwan upward to 5.6 percent from 4 percent, an upgrade that mainly reflects stronger-than-expected AI-related exports and investment in the third
Mercuries Life Insurance Co (三商美邦人壽) shares surged to a seven-month high this week after local media reported that E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控) had outbid CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) in the financially strained insurer’s ongoing sale process. Shares of the mid-sized life insurer climbed 5.8 percent this week to NT$6.72, extending a nearly 18 percent rally over the past month, as investors bet on the likelihood of an impending takeover. The final round of bidding closed on Thursday, marking a critical step in the 32-year-old insurer’s search for a buyer after years of struggling to meet capital adequacy requirements. Local media reports
RARE EARTHS: The call between the US Treasury Secretary and his Chinese counterpart came as Washington sought to rally G7 partners in response to China’s export controls China and the US on Saturday agreed to conduct another round of trade negotiations in the coming week, as the world’s two biggest economies seek to avoid another damaging tit-for-tat tariff battle. Beijing last week announced sweeping controls on the critical rare earths industry, prompting US President Donald Trump to threaten 100 percent tariffs on imports from China in retaliation. Trump had also threatened to cancel his expected meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in South Korea later this month on the sidelines of the APEC summit. In the latest indication of efforts to resolve their dispute, Chinese state media reported that
RSS