The government's sale of a 1 percent stake in Chunghwa Telecom Co flopped yesterday, as investors balked at the price and bought only 7.4 percent of 100 million shares on offer.
The failure follows four fizzled auctions to institutional investors and two dud sales to individual investors in the past two-and-a-half years. The sale of a 13.5 percent stake to Cathay Life Insurance Co and two other investors in December was the only time the government sold all Chunghwa shares on offer.
"The government is always pricing Chunghwa shares too high," said Wu Chiu-pi, a street noodle vender who monitors the NT$10 million of local shares he holds with a hand-held paging device. He hasn't bought any Chunghwa shares.
Chunghwa has been a tough sell because of competition in the world's densest mobile-phone market and a global slump in the phone industry.
The government, which once boasted it would sell a third of the former telephone monopoly by the end of 2000, is still stuck with about 82 percent.
Even a price discount didn't coax buyers. The government sold 6.4 million shares today for NT$51 a share, NT$1 below the market price. That brought the three-day total to 7.4 million shares sold.
"The government simply is not willing to offer a good discount to attract investors," said Simon Chao (
"Worries that people may accuse them of selling state assets too cheaply have prevented the government from being more flexible in pricing," Chao said.
Chunghwa may face lower profit next year. Net income may drop to NT$41.7 billion, said Capital Securities Corp, which managed this week's share sale.
The poor results aren't the first defeat for Chunghwa chairman Hochen Tan (賀陳旦), who took the top job in January.
In 2000, when he was vice minister of transportation and communications, Hochen helped set the price for a planned sale of Chunghwa shares in the US. He resigned from the ministry several months after the sale was shelved, saying his personality wasn't cut out for government work, local media reported at that time.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique