STEELMAKERS
CSC to boost Formosa stake
China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼), the nation’s biggest steelmaker, yesterday said it is to purchase an additional 329 million worth of new common shares in a steel manufacturing venture with Vietnam-based Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Corp (台塑河靜鋼鐵興業) for US$329 million. If the transaction goes ahead, China Steel will have a 25 percent share of Formosa Group (台塑集團). The board has approved the investments to take place next month to boost its share of the Vietnam venture from 5 percent to 25 percent. The investment will ensure sufficient supply of semi-finished raw materials in the long run, Kaohsiung-based China Steel said.
CHIP TESTERS
ChipMOS plan approved
Memory chip tester and packager ChipMOS Technologies Inc (南茂科技) yesterday said shareholders have approved a plan to issue about 299 million new common shares in a private placement for China’s Tsinghua Unigroup Inc (清華紫光) subscription. Tsinghua Unigroup is to hold a 25 percent stake in ChipMOS upon the completion of the transaction. Shareholders also approved a plan for the Chinese company to occupy a seat on the company’s 11-member board.
POLITICS
William Tseng eyes new post
Outgoing Financial Supervisory Commission Chairman William Tseng (曾銘宗) yesterday said he is eyeing a seat on the legislature’s Economics Committee after he is sworn in as a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator-at-large on Monday. Tseng said that he respects the KMT’s caucus rules, which favor seniority over professional background when allocating committee seats. He said that even without a seat on the legislature’s Finance Committee, he would still have the ability to propose amendments and oversee government officials. Former KMT legislator-at-large Tseng Chu-wei (曾巨威), a retired National Chengchi University professor of finance, had been denied a seat on the Finance Committee, Tseng said.
ELECTRONICS
Terry Gou to visit Sharp
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海) chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) is expected to visit the headquarters of Japan-based Sharp Corp for last-ditch talks to acquire the financially troubled electronics firm, the Sankei Shimbun reported yesterday. The report said Gou would go to Sharp headquarters in the Kansai region by the end of this week to talk to ranking executives of the Japanese firm over a possible acquisition. Gou met with two officials from the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in Tokyo on Tuesday, expressing Hon Hai’s willingness to provide a ¥6,250 billion (US$52.52 billion) bailout package for Sharp, the report said.
EMPLOYMENT
Office workers eye change
Eighty-six percent of office workers want to change their jobs after the Lunar New Year holiday, the highest number in the past decade, a 1111 Job Bank survey showed. Among those who want a new job, 4 percent have landed new positions, while 81.6 percent have started looking, the survey showed. It said 13.3 percent indicated they would stay in their current positions until they find a better one. Fifty-six percent said they would stay with their current employers if their salaries were raised by about NT$12,000 per month, the survey showed.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by