Polyester fiber and plastics maker Shinkong Synthetic Fibers Corp (新光合成纖維) yesterday voiced optimism about its business outlook for this year, thanks to a stable global economic recovery.
“We also expect an ongoing capacity expansion project to drive growth momentum over the next three years,” Shinkong Synthetic chairman Eric Wu (吳東昇) told reporters after the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Taipei.
As part of its upbeat outlook, the company said it is to expand its capacity for engineering plastics — which are widely used in the automotive industry — at a plant in Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音) in the third quarter.
Following the expansion, the annual capacity of engineering plastics is expected to increase from 50,000 tonnes to more than 60,000 tonnes, the company said.
Engineering plastics used in the manufacture of vehicles contributed nearly 5 percent to the company’s total revenue last year, according to company statistics.
As a major unit of the Shinkong Group (新光集團), the 50-year-old company also runs several plants in China and Thailand, company data showed.
Shareholders yesterday approved the company’s plan to distribute a NT$0.25 cash dividend per share this year, with a payout ratio of 54.3 percent.
With the company’s stock price closing at NT$8.99 yesterday in Taipei trading, the payout translates into a dividend yield of nearly 2.78 percent.
The company’s shares have declined 0.66 percent so far this year, underperforming the broader market’s 9.17 percent rise over the period, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
Last year, Shinkong Synthetic reported a net profit of NT$748.2 million (US$24.84 million), or earnings per share of NT$0.46, flat from the previous year.
Sales for all of last year fell 6.5 percent to NT$1.41 billion from NT$1.51 billion in 2015 due to relatively low oil prices and decreasing sales at one of its major subsidiaries, TacBright Optronics Corp (達輝光電), the company said.
TacBright Optronics is a producer and dealer of triacetyl cellulose optical films, a key material for making LCDs.
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