Patec Group (百達), a Singapore-based auto components supplier, yesterday said it would start to tap the medical instrument market this year.
“The company is scheduled to start shipping medical instrument sterilization containers in August,” chief executive officer Michael Wee (黃亮茳) told an investors’ conference in Taipei yesterday.
Patec is planning to distribute the new products to B. Braun Melsungen AG, a leading medical and pharmaceutical device supplier from Germany, Huang said.
In addition, Patec is set to begin shipping its surgical scissors and hemostatic forceps in the fourth quarter of this year, he said.
The company said it expects gross margin to grow further this year from last year’s 29.1 percent, as the medical instruments offer margins of more than 50 percent.
The company also plans to launch several new lines of auto parts this year, in a bid to diversify its product portfolio and satisfy global customers’ demand.
Known for its metal stamping technologies, Patec aims to manufacture some plastic injection molded car components this year, such as wiper linkages and injectors.
Patec is able to make 500,000 pieces of wiper linkages and 200,000 units of injectors per month, the company said.
The company is to allocate nearly US$3 million for capital expenditure this year, compared with last year’s US$2 million.
The budget would mainly be used to conduct research and development of new products and raise production capacity at its China plants by 30 percent this year.
The company’s subsidiary in Wuxi, China, has been running at full capacity, Huang said.
Last year, the company posted cumulative sales of NT$2 billion (US$66.3 million), a 30.5 percent increase from NT$1.54 billion a year ago.
Car components remained the company’s main source of revenues last year, constituting 84 percent of total sales, company data showed.
Patec’s largest customer in the sector is France-based Faurecia, a leading auto parts manufacturer and supplier to Volkswagen AG and General Motors Co.
The company also saw net profit last year skyrocket 109 percent to NT$162.8 million from NT$78.07 million in the previous year, or earnings of NT$1.71 per share, company data showed.
Based on last year’s earnings, the board approved a proposal to distribute cash dividends of NT$2 per share, the company said.
With the stock closing at NT$54.30 in Taipei trading yesterday, the proposal represents a dividend yield of 3.68 percent.
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