Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體) and Siliconware Precision Industries Co (SPIL, 矽品精密) yesterday said their boards have agreed to sign a joint share exchange agreement, wrapping up negations for a NT$128.7 billion (US$3.99 billion) takeover bid proposed by ASE.
The agreement is set to expire on Dec. 31 next year, at which time it would terminate unless both companies agree to extend the deadline in writing, a joint statement said.
The companies also agreed to create a new holding company, ASE Industrial Holding Co Ltd (日月光投資控股). Terms of the agreement are mostly the same as the joint share exchange memorandum of understanding signed in May.
SPIL is to sell all of its shares to the new holding company at an adjusted price of NT$51.2 per share, after excluding a NT$3.8 per share cash dividend distribution, while ASE shareholders are to be able to swap each of their ASE shares for a half share in the new holding company.
The new holding company is to own 100 percent of the equity of both ASE and SPIL, while both firms would remain separate legal entities.
If the companies plan to maintain separate operations it might not benefit them in the long term, as overlapping research and development and engineering costs would not help improve their bottom lines, CIMB Securities Ltd Taipei-based analyst Peter Chan (詹逸群) said in a note on June 17.
The ultimate success of the deal lies in how well both sides can learn to work together “to innovate strategies, steer focus and drive execution. More challenges lie ahead,” Chan said.
Based on the agreement, the two companies are to be delisted from the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the new holding company is to debut on the local bourse and on Wall Street, the statement said.
ASE is to hold almost all of the stock in the new entity, which is to issue 3.9 billion common shares.
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