Shares of Cayenne Entertainment Technology Co (紅心辣椒) yesterday plummeted 6.88 percent to NT$37.20, amid investor concern that the Taiwanese video game company would not be able to collect a US$3 million debt from a shuttered South Korean game developer.
Cayenne in 2013 purchased US$3 million in convertible bonds of MAIET Entertainment Inc, with plans to convert the bonds into a 20 to 30 percent shareholding in the South Korean firm this year.
However, MAIET’s game development and operations failed to keep up with the fast changes in the mobile gaming market, and the firm suffered huge losses, which in turn caused Cayenne to post non-operating losses, the Taiwanese company said in a statement.
The South Korean firm sold all of its game rights to another South Korean game developer, Masangsoft Inc, and shut down operations this year.
In a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Friday, Cayenne said its board of directors has approved a motion to entrust a South Korean law firm to pursue the US$3 million.
Cayenne’s share price plunged by the 10 percent daily limit to NT$36.30 on opening yesterday morning, before recovering some ground at the close.
Following the sharp decline, Cayenne issued a statement saying that it had recognized the investment losses in the second, third and fourth quarters of last year.
“The investment in MAIET will not affect Cayenne’s operations or profitability this year as the company had recognized all of the losses last year,” the company said.
Cayenne said that if it is able to collect the debt from the South Korean company, it would recognize the payment as non-operating gains.
Despite the investment losses caused by the shuttering of MAIET, Cayenne said it would continue looking for potential investments in video games overseas.
Cayenne said it plans to introduce more international games in Taiwan as well as upgrade its existing games to secure its position in the nation’s gaming market.
Cayenne reported a net loss of NT$238.25 million (US$7.22 million), or a loss per share of NT$8.61, in the first three quarters of this year.
That compares with a net income of NT$37.34 million, or earnings per share of NT$1.44, over the same period last year.
The company’s revenues totaled NT$430.19 million in the first 11 months of this year, dropping 45.14 percent from NT$784.11 million in the same period last year.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained