BONDS
Foreign bond issuance rises
New issues of foreign bonds have surged since last month in anticipation of upcoming regulatory changes aimed at limiting investment in the instrument, Financial Supervisory Commission data showed yesterday. The commission said that from the end of last month to the end of last week, new issues of 33 foreign bonds totaled US$11.61 billion, 47 percent greater than the US$7.89 billion from 22 new issues recorded in the same period last year. The commission had announced plans to limit life insurers buying bonds that are callable within five years, which have been snapping up foreign bonds ahead of the regulatory change, which is scheduled to take effect in April.
REAL ESTATE
Prince sells Neihu building
Prince Housing & Development Corp (太子建設) yesterday sold an office building in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖) for NT$2.6 billion (US$84.43 million), injecting confidence into the soft commercial property market. The buyer, CyberPower Systems Inc (碩天科技), plans to move its headquarters from Taipei’s Nangang District (南港) to Neihu, said Savills Taiwan Ltd (第一太平戴維斯), which brokered the deal. The building has 6,508 ping (21,514m2) of floor space, including parking, Savills said, adding that self-occupancy demand might continue to drive the market.
ENERGY
Taisugar to invest in biogas
State-run Taiwan Sugar Corp (Taisugar, 台糖) yesterday announced plans to produce electricity at 18 of its pig farms. The company said that it would install biogas power generation systems to make use of methane gas from swine manure, adding that it hopes to produce up to 2.12 megawatts (MW) of electricity by 2025 and contribute to the government’s goal of producing 30MW of biogas energy in the same period.
ENTERTAINMENT
Kbro branches out to movies
Kbro Co (凱擘), the nation’s largest cable TV operator, yesterday announced that it has branched out into the movie theater business in Taiwan, China and Hong Kong. The firm has opened a new movie theater in Taichung, and has inked deals to build eight theaters in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, China, it said. Kbro is also eyeing the content market, and has outlined plans to invest in at least five feature films and three to four TV series per year. The company said it has begun collaborating with Netflix Inc on Chinese-language original content. In addition, a TV series produced by the company is to begin broadcasting in Taiwan next month, the company said, adding that plans for licensing abroad are under way.
CHIPMAKERS
Vanguard dividends rise
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進), which commands a 30 percent share of the global LCD panel controller chip market, yesterday said its board has approved a cash dividend of NT$3 per common share. The distribution is greater than the NT$2.6 per common share distributed by the chipmaker last year, setting an all-time high. It also translated into a dividend yield of 4.92 percent, compared with the stock’s closing price of NT$61 yesterday. The company’s board has also approved an initial investment of 1 million yuan (US$145,288) to establish a subsidiary in Shanghai to facilitate chip sales in China. The company is scheduled to hold an annual shareholders’ meeting on June 16 to approve the cash dividend distribution plan.
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