INSURANCE
TRA policy sufficient
Mingtai Fire and Marine Insurance Co (明台產險), which leads 13 other companies in offering passenger liability insurance for the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) this year, yesterday said that the maximum benefits for a single accident was set at NT$200 million (US$6.47 million) in the policy, which should be sufficient to pay every victim of Sunday’s derailment. The firms said that people who died or were disabled as a result of the accident would receive a compensation of NT$2.5 million, while the injured would receive NT$400,000.
EQUITIES
Foreign investors in sell-off
The Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday said that foreign institutional investors sold a net NT$41.45 billion of shares last week, with China Development Financial Holding Corp (中華開發金控), Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) seeing the highest net selling by foreign investors. Market capitalization of the shareholdings owned by foreign investors was NT$11.56 trillion as of Friday, or 40.41 percent of the total market capitalization, the exchange said. Foreign investors bought a net NT$18.99 million of local shares yesterday.
ELECTRONICS
Hon Hai share price set
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) shares, which were suspended for six days from Thursday last week due to a capital reduction, would have a reference opening price of NT$82.60 upon resuming trading on Friday, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said. Hon Hai in May announced plans to reduce its capital by 20 percent to improve its cash dividend yield for shareholders. The firm’s shares closed at NT$68.10 on Wednesday last week, the lowest level in seven years.
COMPONENTS
Chilisin revenue soars
Passive component maker Chilisin Electronics Corp (奇力新) yesterday posted a net profit of NT$513 million, or earnings per share of NT$2, for last month, on revenue of NT$2.04 billion, up 72.8 percent year-on-year, it said in a company filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Chilisin had been requested to release its latest financial figures after its shares plunged 11.79 percent to NT$87.5 over the past five trading days, surpassing the ceiling of 5 percent set by the exchange before listed companies have to issue a financial disclosure.
ENERGY
SGRE to supply Orsted
Denmark’s Orsted A/S yesterday selected Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) as the preferred supplier for its 900 megawatt offshore wind farms off the cost of Changhua County, the companies said. SGRE is committed to deliver locally produced wind turbine towers with Chin Fong Machine Industrial Co (金豐機器工業), its Taiwanese partner. SGRE would also accelerate the development of a local nacelle assembly facility near Taichung Harbor to meet Orsted’s goal of commencing the wind farm’s construction by 2021.
BANKING
Mega to halt Iran payments
Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐銀行), the banking arm of state-run Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控), is to immediately terminate its payment clearing mechanism between Taiwan and Iran in response to the US’ sanctions, a senior official said yesterday. In August, Mega International said that its business with Iran is too sensitive and “we should no longer get involved in it.”
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by