Troubled video game developer XPEC Entertainment Inc (樂陞科技) yesterday appointed Ding Wan-ming (丁萬鳴), general manager of its honey cake subsidiary E.G-Sain (一之鄉), as the company’s acting chairman.
Former acting chairman Peter Lee (李柏衡) is to serve as XPEC’s chief financial officer and spokesman, the firm said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
XPEC chairman Aaron Hsu (許金龍) is being held incommunicado by the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office over allegations the XPEC share price was manipulated.
Ding, a former business reporter, was Hsu’s colleague at the Chinese-language United Daily News 10 years ago.
Over the past few years, Ding has served as an adviser at XPEC and was named general manager of E.G-Sain in June last year.
The Chinese-language Apple Daily said Ding’s appointment was intended to help his long-time friend during the current crisis.
XPEC is in talks with several potential buyers to sell subsidiaries E.G-Sain and coffee shop chain Ikari Coffee (怡客咖啡), Ding said, without elaborating.
The firm yesterday said in a separate filing that Ernst & Young Taiwan had unilaterally terminated its contract with XPEC and ceased providing audit services on Friday last week.
“Ernst & Young said it could no longer offer its services, because the accounting firm thinks the firm’s operations fall beyond its professional and legal scope,” the filing said.
Ernst & Young Taiwan terminated the contract before XPEC is due to release its earnings report for last quarter on Nov. 15, raising uncertainty over XPEC’s ability to comply with the requirements.
XPEC said it is seeking a new audit company to help prepare its quarterly financial statements in a timely fashion.
XPEC shares yesterday fell 6.54 percent to close at NT$17.85, on turnover of more than 3.04 million shares, in Taipei trading.
POWERING UP: PSUs for AI servers made up about 50% of Delta’s total server PSU revenue during the first three quarters of last year, the company said Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) reported record-high revenue of NT$161.61 billion (US$5.11 billion) for last quarter and said it remains positive about this quarter. Last quarter’s figure was up 7.6 percent from the previous quarter and 41.51 percent higher than a year earlier, and largely in line with Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co’s (元大投顧) forecast of NT$160 billion. Delta’s annual revenue last year rose 31.76 percent year-on-year to NT$554.89 billion, also a record high for the company. Its strong performance reflected continued demand for high-performance power solutions and advanced liquid-cooling products used in artificial intelligence (AI) data centers,
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Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
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