SEMICONDUCTORS
Silergy to buy Maxim units
Power management IC designer Silergy Corp (矽力杰) yesterday said it would acquire Maxim Integrated Products Inc’s smart meter and energy monitoring and management business units for US$105 million. Silergy said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange that the deal is expected to be closed in the first quarter of the year, and that it aims to increase the Taiwanese firm’s share in the European and US markets through widening its customer base and more extensive product lines. After the purchase, the whole team of Maxim’s acquired department will remain in the US. Silergy said it is evaluating different financial tools to finance the deal, as it held a cash balance of NT$2.4 billion (US$72.6 million) as of Sept. 30. “We see great synergies in the deal, and this is a positive move for Silergy to tap into the high growth, high margin IoT [Internet of Things] and industrial market,” Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) said in a client note yesterday. While Silergy has not disclosed financial details, the deal is expected to be revenue and earnings accretive, Yuanta said.
RENEWABLE ENERGY
Gintech posts US$4.9m profit
Taiwanese solar cell maker Gintech Energy Corp (昱 晶) yesterday said it made NT$162 million (US$4.9 million) in net profit for November after swimming back to profits of NT$139 million in the third quarter. That represents earnings per share of NT$0.36. Gintech lost NT$696 million in the third quarter of last year, according to a company statement submitted to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The company released the monthly earnings at the request of the stock exchange regulator due to an unusual spike in the stock price. Gintech shares surged about 28 percent over the past 15 days to close at NT$32.05 yesterday.
SMARTPHONES
ZenFone centers expanded
Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) yesterday said it plans to increase the locations offering one-hour fast maintenance service for its smartphone this year, after introducing the service to six cities in China last month. The service allows ZenFone holders to make reservations on Asustek’s official Web site, and then to have their smartphone’s problems fixed within an hour in Asustek’s maintenance offices, the company said. The introduction of the service is part of the firm’s strategy to enhance its customer services, Asustek said, which has thus far launched such services in Taiwan, Hong Kong and six cities in China. The company plans to provide it in more big cities in China and ASEAN this year.
BANKING
OBUs’ assets drop 1.7%
The 62 offshore banking units (OBUs) of banks operating in Taiwan posted total assets of US$187.01 billion in November, down US$3.159 billion, or 1.7 percent, from the previous month, the central bank said in a statement on its Web site. Among them, US$160.2 billion in assets were held by the OBUs of 37 Taiwanese banks, and US$26.807 billion in assets were held by the OBUs of 25 foreign banks doing business in Taiwan, the central bank said, without elaborating on the decrease in the OBUs’ total assets. These OBUs’ lending made up about 45.2 percent of their total assets with interbank lending and deposits representing 17.8 percent. Securities investments accounted for an additional 15.8 percent, the central bank said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last