E-commerce operator PChomestore Inc (商店街) has seen its book value nosedive to minus-NT$25.3 per common share after losses last quarter worsened to NT$928 million (US$31.05 million) due to massive shipping subsidies.
The company’s book value was NT$1.64 per share on Dec. 31 last year.
The figure translated into losses per share of NT$26.94, its biggest quarterly losses in five quarters, the company said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
The quarterly losses were about 2.7 times bigger than PChomestore’s share capital of NT$344 million.
In order to match rival Shopee Taiwan Co (樂購蝦皮), which offers free shipping on every transaction, to stem a loss of market share, PChomestore’s marketing expenses skyrocketed to NT$938 million in the first quarter, compared with NT$40.56 million in the same period last year.
Last quarter’s losses widened significantly from losses of NT$6.39 million in the same period last year and from losses of NT$694 million in the fourth quarter of last year.
However, PChomestore said its gross merchandise value surged sixfold annually to an all-time high of NT$12 billion in the first three months of this year.
PChomestore’s weak quarterly performance has begun to drag on parent PChome Online Inc (網路家庭), which reported losses of NT$472 million for last quarter, compared with net profit of NT$204 million in the same period last year.
PChome Online attributed the losses to a significant increase in operating expenses to NT$1.89 billion last quarter, compared with NT$881 million a year earlier, although revenue expanded about 18 percent year-on-year from NT$6.92 billion to NT$8.2 billion.
PChome Online holds an about 37.6 percent stake in PChomestore.
PChomestore plans to launch an overseas initial public offering (IPO) after delisting from the local over-the-counter stock market, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News quoted general manager Su Yun (蘇芸) as saying yesterday.
It plans to raise between NT$2 billion and NT$2.5 billion from the IPO, which would be launched next year at the earliest, Su was quoted as saying.
E-commerce stocks and Internet companies are not traded at a fair valuation on the local stock market, as most investors gauge a company’s value only by its bottom line, Su was quoted as saying, adding that it is the norm for Internet start-ups to report losses.
The move came after PChomestore’s board of directors on Wednesday last week approved a NT$363 million privatization plan to avoid being forced off of the Taipei Exchange because of negative book value.
Based on the privatization plan, the company has proposed buying back all outstanding shares, about 8.25 million shares, at NT$44 per share on the open market.
Supported by the buyback plan, PChomestore shares yesterday rose 0.12 percent to NT$43.05, despite the company’s poor financial results.
PChome Online shares yesterday rallied 4.12 percent to close at NT$129 in Taipei trading.
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
RSS