INVESTMENT
Cathay raising Sea Ltd funds
Cathay Securities Corp (國泰綜合證券) yesterday announced that its overseas security unit has been selected to oversee further fundraising for Sea Ltd in Taiwan, after the Singaporean company’s initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 20. Sea Ltd operates Garena, an online game distributor, Shopee, an e-commerce platform and AirPay, a digital financial services platform. At the end of Monday’s session, Sea’s market capitalization was estimated at about US$4.61 billion. Separately, Cathay Securities said that it has competed six secondary public offering deals during the first nine months of this year.
RETAIL
Momo.com income drops
TV and online retailer Momo.com Inc (富邦媒) yesterday reported a 3.62 percent annual decline in net income to NT$243.36 million (US$8.06 million) last quarter. Earnings contracted by 31.08 percent from the NT$353.12 million made in the previous quarter, Momo.com’s filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange showed. The drop in earnings and weaker-than-expected sales in its TV and catalog business offset the growth in its online retail segment, it said in a statement. Momo.com’s combined earnings totaled NT$906.41 million in the first three quarters, an increase of 1.5 percent from NT$892.98 million the same period a year ago. Earnings per share were NT$6.47 for the first nine months of this year, compared with the NT$6.38 per share over the same period last year, the filing showed.
IPO
Long Chen eyes China IPO
Papermaker Long Chen Paper Co (榮成紙業) yesterday said it plans to hold an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting on Dec. 19 to discuss a proposal to debut its Chinese subsidiary on the Chinese stock exchanges, according to a company filing. Long Chen, which enjoys a solid position in eastern China’s papermaking industry, operates China business through its major unit Jiangsu Longchen Greentech Co Ltd (江蘇榮成環保科技), data showed. The Taiwanese firm did not provide a detailed timetable for the IPO plan.
STEELMAKERS
China Steel profits up 58%
China Steel Corp (中鋼), the nation’s only integrated steelmaker, on Monday posted pretax profit of NT$2.28 billion for last month, a 58 percent jump from the previous month, mainly due to higher product prices. In the first three quarters of this year, pretax profit totaled NT$14.85 billion, which translated into a 11 percent annual decrease from NT$16.67 billion a year earlier. Despite the decline in cumulative profit, the company gave an optimistic business outlook for the fourth quarter, saying that it might benefit from an upward trend in global steel prices. China Steel shares yesterday edged down 0.41 percent to close at NT$24.55 in Taipei trading.
ELECTRONICS
Advantech to buy rival shares
Advantech Co (研華), the nation’s biggest industrial computer maker, yesterday said its board has approved the purchase of 12 million common shares of Winmate Inc (融程電訊) for NT$540 million. After the purchase, Advantech is to hold about a 16.62 percent stake in Winmate, a smaller local rival. The equity investment will allow Winmate to join Advantech’s Internet of Things Allied Platform Service Alliance, Advantech said in a statement. The offer of NT$45 per share represented a discount of 23 percent, compared with Winmate’s closing price of NT$58.5 yesterday.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”