The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Investment Commission on Friday last week approved a NT$9.35 billion (US$304.40 million) buyout of medical equipment maker Microlife Corp (百略) by an affiliate of Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia.
Microlife in March announced that it had agreed to sell all of its shares to Midas Health Co Ltd at NT$84.74 per share, a 17.85 percent premium over the stock’s 20-day average closing price of NT$71.9.
The company is to be delisted from the local bourse next month, the commission said.
Midas Health is part of a US$1.7 billion closed-end private equity plan under Morgan Stanley.
Founded in 1981 and listed on the over-the-counter Taipei Exchange in 2001, Microlife is among Taiwan’s top contract designers and manufacturers of medical equipment for home use and has never posted an operating loss, while its annual earnings per share have consistently been more than NT$5 over the past five years.
The company’s own-brand products are sold in Europe and North America, and are distributed by major retailers including Walmart Inc.
Microlife vice chairman William Hsu (許盛信) in March said that the company was seeking a buyout to secure the funds it needed to cope with rising uncertainty in global markets.
Market analysts have said that the 17.85 percent premium was lower than expected and indicative of limited growth prospects in the market for digital thermometers and blood pressure monitoring systems.
The commission also approved an application by United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) to purchase the remaining 84.1 percent of Mie Fujitsu Semiconductor Ltd for ￥57.63 billion (US$511.55 million) and gain full ownership of the Japanese company, which operates a 12-inch fab in Japan, it said in a statement.
Catcher Technology Co (可成), the nation’s leading supplier of light-metal casings and enclosures for mobile devices, received the commission’s nod to invest US$69.9 million in the China Renewable Energy Fund, a US$300 million fund started by Apple Inc and its suppliers in Asia.
Other Taiwanese suppliers to Apple have also invested in the fund, which aims to develop 1 gigawatt of renewable energy capacity in China, with Pegatron Corp (和碩) committing US$40 million, Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) US$28.2 million and Wistron Corp (緯創) US$26.8 million.
Eastern Media International Corp (東森國際) received the commission’s green light to acquire a 30 percent stake in Hong Kong-listed Natural Beauty Biotechnology Ltd, which markets skincare and aromatherapy products, for HK$540.57 million (US$69.22 million), the commission said.
The commission at the same time approved plans by Coretronic (Suzhou) Co Ltd (揚昕科技) to invest NT$300 million to set up a subsidiary in Taiwan.
The company, established by Taiwanese projector and LCD backlight manufacturer Coretronic Corp (中強光電) in Jiangsu in China’s Jiangsu Province, is looking to mitigate the effects of the US-China trade war by establishing an industrial plastics manufacturing unit in Taiwan, the commission said.
CLIENTS’ RIGHTS: Banking Bureau Deputy Director-General Lin Chih-chi said the buyer and Citibank Taiwan would need to disclose changes to branch operations DBS Bank Taiwan (星展台灣), the local unit of Singapore-based DBS Group Holdings Ltd, has reportedly won a bid to acquire Citibank Taiwan Ltd’s (花旗台灣) consumer banking business, but the two companies declined to confirm the report yesterday. Citibank Taiwan’s consumer banking business is to be sold for about NT$60 billion (US$2.17 billion) to DBS Taiwan, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported on Sunday. DBS Taiwan and its parent company are expediting the negotiations with the seller’s US-based parent company, while other local bidders, including Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) and Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), have dropped their bids, the report said. Citibank
‘BULLISH YEAR AHEAD’: The contract chipmaker set a growth target of up to 29 percent, as it expects to outperform its peers in the semiconductor industry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is planning to boost this year’s capital expenditure budget by about 46 percent to exceed US$44 billion, citing strong customer demand for advanced technologies used in high-performance computing (HPC) and 5G-related applications, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said yesterday. The plan marks a record spending for TSMC after the chipmaker budgeted US$30 billion for capacity expansions at home and overseas fabs last year. TSMC is planning to allocate about 80 percent of this year’s capital spending for advanced chip capacity expansion including 2-nanometer, 3-nanometer, 5-nanometer and 7-nanometer technologies. The chipmaker reiterated that it is on
Siltronic AG cast doubt on a planned US$5.3 billion takeover by GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), saying the German Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action’s feedback so far was opaque and offered no clear resolution on how to win approval for the deal. During recent discussions, the companies did not receive any information as to whether and under which conditions a clearance for the takeover might be issued, the German company said in a regulatory filing on Friday following a news report on remedies the companies have offered. In the ministry’s view “in this case, a mitigation agreement is apparently not suitable
BELLWETHER COMPANY: A failed fundraiser at Country Garden, thus far unaffected by issues at Evergrande, is feared to prompt widespread repricing of developer stocks A crisis engulfing China’s property sector is affecting its biggest developer, with Country Garden Holdings Co’s (碧桂園) shares and bonds hammered amid fears that a reportedly failed fundraising effort might be a harbinger of waning confidence. Country Garden is one of the few remaining large, better-quality private developers that had been largely unscathed by the liquidity crunch, even as peers, such as Shimao Group Holdings Ltd (世茂集團), saw dramatic reversals in their credit ratings. The firm is viewed as a bellwether for contagion risk, as unprecedented levels of stress in the offshore credit market threaten to drag good credits down alongside bad
RSS