Chinese Petroleum Corp (CPC, 中油) president Chen Bao-lang (陳寶郎), who took over the helm of the nation's biggest refiner on Thursday, said helping put the state-owned company into private hands is one of his main objectives.
Chen's promotion was the third change at the top of a state-owned company in a week. The government may be hoping that management changes will help remove obstacles that have slowed stake sales in the past. It needs money to help plug a a record NT$257 billion (US$7.5 billion) budget deficit.
"They are at a disadvantage," Kevin Yang, vice president of International Investment Trust Co (國際投信), who manages the equivalent of US$90 million, said of state-owned companies. "They have to serve government policies and don't consider making profit their ultimate goals. They must be privatized to be competitive. The main barriers are objections from law-makers and labor unions."
Also on the block are Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電), where Lin Ching-chi (林清吉), took over as chairman on Tuesday, and Taiwan Sugar Corp, where Lin Neng-pai (林能白) assumed the chairmanship the same day.
The asset sales are focused on the government's 65 percent stake in Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華 電信); its 97 percent stake in Taiwan Power and its 100 percent holding in Chinese Petroleum.
The government may be hoping for more success than it's had with Chunghwa. Plans to sell two-thirds of the company foundered when investors shunned the government's asking price at four auctions.
The Commission of National Corporations suggested in 2002 that the government sell at least part of CPC at NT$19 a share. That would be 32 times CPC's earnings last year. CPC, with net assets of NT$268 billion, posted an earnings-per-share (EPS) of NT$0.59 last year. Taiwan Power, with assets of N$523 billion, had an EPS of NT$0.73.
Competitors in private ownership show better performances.
A CPC internal study said it should pare its workforce to 11,000 from 15,400, company spokesman Liao Tsang- long (
DAMAGE REPORT: Global central banks are assessing war-driven inflation risks as the law of unintended consequences careens around the world, spiking oil prices Central banks from Washington to London and from Jakarta to Taipei are about to make their first assessments of economic damage after more than two weeks of conflict between the US and Iran. Decisions this week encompassing every member of the G7 and eight of the world’s 10 most-traded currency jurisdictions are likely to confirm to investors that the specter of a new inflation shock is already worrying enough to prompt heightened caution. The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to do exactly what everyone anticipated weeks ahead of its March 17-18 policy gathering: hold rates steady. The narrative surrounding that
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) share of the global foundry market rose to almost 70 percent last year amid booming demand for artificial intelligence (AI), market information advisory firm TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said on Thursday. The contract chipmaker posted US$122.54 billion in revenue, up 36.1 percent from a year earlier, accounting for 69.9 percent of the global market, TrendForce said. Its share was up from 64.4 percent in 2024, it said. TSMC’s closest rival, Samsung Electronics, was a distant second, posting US$12.63 billion in sales, down 3.9 percent from a year earlier, for a 7.2 percent share of the global market. In the
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
At a massive shipyard in North Vancouver, Canadian workers grind metal beams for a powerful new icebreaker crucial to cementing the country’s presence in the increasingly contested arctic. Icebreakers are specialized, expensive vessels able to navigate in the frozen far north. And “this is the crown jewel,” said Eddie Schehr, vice president of production at the Seaspan shipyard. For Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who heads to Norway next Friday to observe arctic defense drills involving troops from 14 NATO states, Canada’s extreme north has emerged as a strategic priority. “Canada is and forever will be an Arctic nation,” he said ahead of
RSS