Gamemag Interactive Inc (磁力線上), an affiliate of troubled game developer XPEC Entertainment Inc (樂陞科技), has shut down due to financial woes involving its chairman Aaron Hsu (許金龍), affecting about 100 employees.
“The company has run out of funds amid poor demand. As the chairman is no longer able to run the company, the shareholders cannot support the firm anymore,” Gamemag said in an undated internal letter to its employees.
Chiang Pao-chia (蔣寶夏), who referred to herself in the letter as the representative of Gamemag’s largest shareholder, said that she will help negotiate with XPEC for employees who want to transfer there.
“Since the company is unable to pay wages this month, we suggest employees seek new job opportunities as soon as possible,” Chiang said.
Although Gamemag has shut down its Web site, the Ministry of Finance’s tax data show that the company was still in operation as of yesterday, which means the firm’s formal closure application has not been processed.
Gamemag was XPEC’s research and development unit for PC and mobile games.
It became an affiliate in January 2013 with paid-in capital of NT$200 million (US$6.49 million at the current exchange rate), according to data from the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
XPEC sold its shares in Gamemag several times over the past four years to JAFCO Asia, a Japanese venture capital firm, and Minseng Plastics Industrial Co Ltd (明盛塑膠), a Taiwanese film and photograph album maker, local media reported.
XPEC now only holds a 10 percent share in Gamemag, but Hsu remains chairman of both firms, according to XPEC’s annual report to shareholders in June last year.
Hsu has faced trouble since the failed sale of XPEC stock amounting to NT$4.86 billion, or a 25 percent stake, to a Japanese firm, Bai Chi Gan Tou Digital Entertainment Co (百尺竿頭), in August last year.
Hsu, XPEC’s former acting chairman Peter Lee (李伯衡), chief financial officer Hsieh Tung-po (謝東波) and seven other people were indicted on Jan. 24 by the Taipei District Court over alleged violations of the Securities Exchange Act (證券交易法) to manipulate XPEC’s stock price over the botched deal with Bai Chi.
XPEC’s trading was suspended by the Taipei Exchange on Nov. 17 last year after it failed to resubmit its financial statements for the second and third quarters.
LIMITED IMPACT: Investor confidence was likely sustained by its relatively small exposure to the Chinese market, as only less advanced chips are made in Nanjing Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) saw its stock price close steady yesterday in a sign that the loss of the validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing, China, fab should have a mild impact on the world’s biggest contract chipmaker financially and technologically. Media reports about the waiver loss sent TSMC down 1.29 percent during the early trading session yesterday, but the stock soon regained strength and ended at NT$1,160, unchanged from Tuesday. Investors’ confidence in TSMC was likely built on its relatively small exposure to the Chinese market, as Chinese customers contributed about 9 percent to TSMC’s revenue last
With this year’s Semicon Taiwan trade show set to kick off on Wednesday, market attention has turned to the mass production of advanced packaging technologies and capacity expansion in Taiwan and the US. With traditional scaling reaching physical limits, heterogeneous integration and packaging technologies have emerged as key solutions. Surging demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing (HPC) and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips has put technologies such as chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS), integrated fan-out (InFO), system on integrated chips (SoIC), 3D IC and fan-out panel-level packaging (FOPLP) at the center of semiconductor innovation, making them a major focus at this year’s trade show, according
DEBUT: The trade show is to feature 17 national pavilions, a new high for the event, including from Canada, Costa Rica, Lithuania, Sweden and Vietnam for the first time The Semicon Taiwan trade show, which opens on Wednesday, is expected to see a new high in the number of exhibitors and visitors from around the world, said its organizer, SEMI, which has described the annual event as the “Olympics of the semiconductor industry.” SEMI, which represents companies in the electronics manufacturing and design supply chain, and touts the annual exhibition as the most influential semiconductor trade show in the world, said more than 1,200 enterprises from 56 countries are to showcase their innovations across more than 4,100 booths, and that the event could attract 100,000 visitors. This year’s event features 17
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), which assembles servers for Nvidia Corp, yesterday said that revenue last month rose 10.61 percent year-on-year, driven by strong growth in cloud and networking products amid continued front-loading orders for artificial intelligence (AI) server racks. Consolidated revenue expanded to NT$606.51 billion (US$19.81 billion) last month from NT$548.31 billion a year earlier, marking the highest ever in August, the company said in a statement. On a monthly basis, revenue was down 1.2 percent from NT$613.86 billion. Hon Hai, which is also a major iPhone assembler, added that its electronic components division saw significant revenue growth last month, boosted
RSS