SHIPPING
Yang Ming receives vessel
Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp (陽明海運) yesterday held a naming and delivery ceremony in Japan for the YM Wellbeing, a 14,000 twenty-foot-equivalent unit (TEU) container vessel built by Imabari Shipbuilding Co Ltd at its shipyard in Hiroshima, Japan. Yang Ming said the new vessel is the first of five 14,000 TEU container ships the company has chartered from Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd. The YM Wellbeing is the 16th 14,000 TEU vessel to join Yang Ming’s global container fleet, the firm said in a statement, adding that it would be deployed on the company’s Asia-Mediterranean route on Oct. 5.
FINANCE
Cathay plans to issue bonds
Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) said it plans to sell up to NT$20 billion (US$649.1 million) of unsecured corporate bonds within one year, the first such sale in the company’s history, to take advantage of low interest rates in the domestic money market and would use the proceeds to improve its working capital. The company’s board approved the bond sale plan on Monday, but it did not make a final decision on the issuance date, the duration and the size of the bonds. The company has this year issued NT$42 billion in special shares and used the proceeds to inject capital into Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽).
FOOD AND BEVERAGE
Buyback boosts Wowprime
Restaurant chain operator Wowprime Corp’s (王品集團) shares yesterday rose 5.06 percent after it announced a share buyback scheme late on Monday. Under the planned share buyback, the first of its kind in the company’s history, Wowprime would repurchase shares on the open market from today to Nov. 18 at about NT$56 to NT$115 per share, the company said. Wowprime said it is to buy back 3.85 million shares, or as much as 5 percent of total shares, during that period. Shares yesterday closed at NT$83 in Taipei trading. They have retreated 38.06 percent this year, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
FOOD AND BEVERAGE
Lion opens restaurant chain
Lion Travel Service Co Ltd (雄獅旅行社), the nation’s largest outbound travel service company, has extended its reach to the restaurant business after launching two street-side stores this year. The new Gonna (共樂遊)-brand restaurants are being personally funded by Lion Travel chairman Jason Wang (王文傑) and would become part of the company’s business, the company said. Lion Travel said it aims to open 14 Gonna restaurants in five years. Lion Travel shares yesterday ended up 0.44 percent to NT$90.5 in Taipei trading.
MANUFACTURING
Walsin cancels fundraising
Walsin Technology Corp (華新科技), the nation’s second-largest passive components supplier, said its board of directors has decided to cancel a new share sale plan. The company on July 30 announced plans to raise funds to purchase multilayer ceramic capacitor machinery by issuing 7 million new common shares. The board on Monday decided to cancel the fundraising plan, as the company has seen stable net cash inflows due to continuous strong growth in profitability since the second quarter of this year. The board believes the firm’s own funds are sufficient to support the purchase, Walsin said. Walsin shares yesterday fell 7.31 percent to NT$234.5 in Taipei trading.
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six