INSURANCE
Chaoyang auction postponed
An auction for Chaoyang Life Insurance Co (朝陽人壽) might be delayed until after September, pushing back earlier plans to find a buyer for the troubled company by next month, regulators said. Chaoyang Life was placed under government receivership in January after racking up massive losses and negative net worth. The semi-official Insurance Stabilization Fund, which has been appointed the official receiver for the company Life, said it needs more time to present and discuss recommendations by asset management companies with the Financial Supervisory Commission.
FINANCE
SinoPac profit falls 25%
SinoPac Financial Holdings Co (永豐金控) yesterday reported that net income in the first quarter fell 25 percent year-on-year to NT$2.72 billion (US$83.23 million). Earnings per share during the period were NT$0.27. The company attributed the decline to successive interest rate cuts, which pushed down its net interest margin to 1.09 percent. Bank SinoPac president and spokesperson Michael Chang (張晉源) said that a new branch would open its doors in Shanghai next week, adding that the company would continue expanding China, with plans to open one new branch each year. Chang maintained a downbeat outlook on Taiwan’s economic growth this year, saying that a marked recovery is not expected until next year. However, he does not expect the financial sector to bear the brunt of an expected capital flight, as money flows back to the US following the US Federal Reserve’s anticipated interest rate increase.
PHARMACEUTICALS
OBI Pharma shares soar
OBI Pharma Inc (台灣浩鼎) shares yesterday surged 9.98 percent to NT$562 as the company’s presentation on its new breast cancer vaccine, OBI-822, at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s (ASCO) annual meeting in Chicago next month draws near. The company’s share price has rallied since ASCO published an abstract by the company showing that OBI’s new treatment is effective for certain patients, despite failing the primary endpoint of a phase III clinical trial. The biotech sub-index also gained 3.24 percent to 76.81 points yesterday, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
TECHNOLOGY
Computex buyer numbers up
The number of registered buyers visiting this year’s Computex Taipei rose 3.8 percent to 15,541, organizers said yesterday. The trade show is to feature products by 1,602 companies from 30 nations, of which 23 percent are making their debut at Taiwan’s flagship technology event, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. The event is gaining traction internationally, with the number of participating nations rising by 36 percent year-on-year to reach the highest number in the past five years, TAITRA said.
STEEL
Scrap prices stabilize
Feng Hsin Iron and Steel Co (豐興) yesterday said that international scrap steel prices had stopped their streak of declines. The company said it is observing whether prices will stabilize before readjusting its own prices. Scrap steel prices have seen six downward adjustments since the beginning of this month, with prices falling from US$200 to US$190 in the US market, while prices slid from US$235 to US$210 in Japan, Feng Hsin said. Overall steel prices opened flat yesterday, it said. Feng Hsin shares were also unchanged in Taipei trading yesterday at NT$42.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts