ELECTRONICS
Antec cancels shares
Antec Inc (安鈦克), one of the nation’s leading computer peripheral makers, yesterday announced a share capital reduction by canceling 1.19 million common shares, or 3.53 percent of its total shares in circulation, to pare down accumulated losses. The company is then to exercise another 10.89 percent capital reduction to adjust its capital structure and refund NT$1 per share to shareholders, Antec said. Through the two rounds of capital reduction, the company’s capitalization would drop from NT$337 million to NT$290 million. Antec said it would not distribute cash dividends for last year.
SILICONE
Topco announces dividend
Silicone products supplier Topco Technologies Corp (崇越電) yesterday said that it plans to distribute a cash dividend of NT$5.1 per common share based on last year’s earnings per share of NT$7.23, representing a payout ratio of 70.54 percent. With the company’s shares closing at NT$70.3 in Taipei trading on Wednesday last week, the proposal suggests a dividend yield of 7.25 percent. Topco’s revenue grew 11.94 percent to NT$8.6 billion last year (US$278.95 million), with net profit of NT$463 million.
DINING
Caesar Banqiao drops prices
Caesar Park Banciao (板橋凱薩飯店) yesterday launched a nearly 50 percent discount at its buffet restaurant Bon Appetit (朋派) on weekdays to attract more guests. Lunch charges are to drop from NT$980 per head to NT$490 on weekdays during the promotion period, which is to last until the end of next month, public relations officials said.
ELECTRONICS
Sampo picks new president
Consumer electronics maker Sampo Corp (聲寶) yesterday announced the appointment of Hsu Ching-chao (許經朝) as its new president, replacing Chen Lian-chuen (陳連春). Hsu was formerly president of U-Lite Electric Co Ltd (上新聯晴), a consumer electronics retail chain owned by Sampo that halted operations in October 2017. The personnel adjustment took immediate effect, the company said.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Taiwan Liposome signs deal
Taiwan Liposome Co (TLC, 台灣微脂體) on Sunday announced that it has signed a commercialization partnership with Hong Kong Sansheng Medical Ltd (香港三生製藥). Under the agreement, Taiwan Liposome grants Sansheng Medical the exclusive right to market two liposomal products utilizing TLC’s NanoX technology platform in China, it said in a regulatory filing. Taiwan Liposome could receive up to US$25 million in payment from Sansheng Medical, the filing said. The company’s revenue grew 25.56 percent to NT$62.32 million last year, but it remained unprofitable with a net loss of NT$901 million.
ELECTRIC VEHICLES
More Gogoros sent to Europe
A sharing service using Gogoro Inc’s (睿能創意) electric scooters is expanding in Berlin, Paris and Madrid, service provider Coup Mobility GmbH said. Five hundred more Gogoro scooters are to join the Coup e-scooter fleets in those cities this year, raising the total to 1,500 Gogoro e-scooters in Berlin, 2,200 in Paris and 1,350 in Madrid, Coup CEO Bernd Schmaul said on Thursday last week. After the expansion, Paris is to have the highest concentration of Gogoro vehicles, with 29 per square kilometer, followed by 19 in Madrid and 16 in Berlin, Schmaul said.
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to