CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) yesterday agreed to provide NT$500 million (US$15.89 million) in compensation to investors affected by a botched tender offer for XPEC Entertainment Inc (樂陞科技) that was overseen by two of its subsidiaries.
Investors who participated in the deal incurred massive losses as XPEC’s share prices tanked.
The decision was approved following a meeting of the company’s board of directors and would be formalized in an agreement with the Securities and Futures Investors Protection Center (SFIPC), the company said in a statement.
The company wishes to fulfill its moral obligations to affected investors and mitigate ongoing controversies, it said.
However, the company denied all wrongdoing by its subsidiaries.
It said that CTBC Securities (中國信託證券), which provided financial consultation and shareholders’ services for XPEC, and CTBC Bank Co (中國信託銀行) had satisfied all regulatory rules in their handling of the acquisition deal.
Investors’ losses stemmed from limitations of rules governing tender offers, and CTBC Securities and CTBC Bank cooperated with regulators and investigators after Bai Chi Gan Tou Digital Entertainment Co (百尺竿頭) canceled its NT$4.86 billion deal to purchase a 25.17 percent stake in XPEC.
XPEC shares tumbled from their closing price of NT$99.5 on Aug. 19, the deadline for Bai Chi Gan Tou to submit the full acquisition payment to XPEC based on the then-22 percent premium at NT$128 per share.
CTBC Bank later extended the payment date to Aug. 31, with XPEC shares falling to NT$70.2.
XPEC share prices continued to drop following the deal’s collapse, and closed down 8.3 percent at NT$11.05 yesterday.
A number of XPEC shareholders had submitted their shares to CTBC Bank as early as June, and were left unable to place stop-loss orders as their shares were locked into the tender offer, members of a self-help group said.
The SFIPC said it is expected to receive the NT$500 million in compensation from CTBC before Monday next week.
It said it would take applications from investors who have not yet applied for compensation until Nov. 23.
The SFIPC said it estimates that investors could receive between NT$13,000 and NT$14,000 in compensation per 1,000 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