REAL ESTATE
A8 auction fails to win bids
The auction of Shin Kong Life Insurance Co’s (新光人壽) A8 commercial complex in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) fell through yesterday because the deal failed to attract any offers, bidding organizer Jones Lang LaSalle Taiwan (仲量聯行) said in a statement. The result is not surprising because the asking price of NT$28 billion (US$861.27 million) for the building would generate a return of 2.46 percent, lower than the minimum 2.805 percent yield required for domestic life insurers, analysts said. The organizer said it would continue negotiations between the seller and potential buyers in an attempt to facilitate the deal. The A8 building houses a branch of the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store (新光三越百貨) chain.
? retail
Farglory to open iFG mall
Farglory Group (遠雄集團) on Friday is to tap the retail business by opening an iFG Shopping Mall in New Taipei City’s Sijhih District (汐止), which has a floor area of 31,570 ping (107,471m2), with four floors above ground and a basement. The shopping mall is the group’s first attempt to expand into the retail business. It is to feature 200 stores and a variety of restaurants, the group said. Farglory Group has businesses ranging from property construction and hotels to life insurance, solar power and biotechnology.
BANKING
S&P retains ‘Group 4’ rating
Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Ratings Services yesterday said it has kept its Banking Industry Country Risk Assessment (BICRA) for Taiwan at “Group 4,” as the agency views the nation’s economic and industrial environment as stable. Other nations in the “Group 4” category are Malaysia, Mexico and Israel, S&P said in a statement. The rating reflects S&P’s confidence in Taiwan’s financial system, although property prices are likely to undergo a modest and orderly decline over the next two years and even though bank earnings are likely to remain subdued over the next one to two years, the statement said. S&P also said the likelihood of meaningful industry consolidation would be low over the next two to three years.
FINANCE
HTC backs Surgical Theater
HTC Corp (宏達電) has participated in a US$9 million fundraising effort by US-based Surgical Theater LLC to help the latter develop virtual reality and image guidance software for healthcare. The US company develops solutions that help surgeons consult with patients, plan complex surgical procedures and use medical imaging during surgery and post-operative reviews, the company said on Monday. China-based Shanghai Creation Investment Management Co (上海創投) also participated in Surgical Theater’s latest fundraising drive, the US firm said in a statement.
CHIPMAKERS
Powerchip to invest in China
Local chipmaker Powerchip Technology Corp (力晶科技) yesterday held a groundbreaking ceremony for its first plant in China, in Hefei, Anhui Province. The company plans to invest a total of US$230 million in the 12-inch wafer plant, which is to be jointly owned by Powerchip and Hefei Construction Investment and Holding Co (合肥市建設投資控股). The new plant is scheduled to start operations in October 2017 and is to produce 40,000 12-inch wafers per month initially. Powerchip plans to use the plant to produce driver integrated circuits for LCD TV panels.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to