Tue, Sep 14, 2004 page11

• Business Briefs

  • AGENCIES
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  ■ Taishin in model portfolio

  Citigroup Inc's Smith Barney unit is adding Taishin Financial Holdings Co (台新金控) to its model portfolio of Asian stocks outside Japan. The broker is removing AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) on concern about slower earnings growth. Smith Barney will also add Telekom Malaysia Bhd, Southeast Asia's second largest phone company, to replace Maxis Communications Bhd, Malaysia's biggest mobile phone company. Taishin Financial, which controls Taishin International Bank (台新銀行), two weeks ago reported a 64 percent climb in first-half earnings. Shares of AU Optronics, the world's third largest maker of flat-panel displays used in computers and televisions, fell 15 percent in the past three months amid oversupply concerns. "We are not believers that it will get better in techland soon," Markus Rosgen, Smith Barney's Asian strategist, wrote in the broker's daily note. "Banks remain our second-largest overweight in the region just behind telecoms."

  ■ TSMC eyes Mapper Lithography

  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufac-turing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is considering investing in Mapper Lithogra-phy BV, a closely held Dutch chip-machine developer and competitor to ASML Holding NV, Het Finan-cieele Dagblad said, citing TSMC executive Burn Lin (林本堅). "We are currently in talks with Mapper about sponsoring of the development of their chip ma-chine," the paper quoted Lin as saying. Lin is director at TSMC's unit that develops new chip production technologies, the report said. ASML is a supplier to TSMC, the world's biggest supplier of made-to-order chips. TSMC will use ASML's machines until chip production is expected to switch to a new technology in about 2007, the newspaper said. Based in Delft, Netherlands, Mapper Lithography's technology "is on the right track" for use in chip manufacturing after 2007, Lin said.

  ■ Share sales face restrictions

  The government plans to impose more restrictions on companies holding public share sales to build confidence in the stock market, a Chinese-language business daily reported, citing Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp Chairman Wu Nai-jen (吳乃仁). The move comes after Procomp Informatics Co (博達科技) and other companies failed to explain their finances to investors before defaulting and posting surprise losses, the newspaper report said. The Taiwan Stock Exchange will look more closely at management teams of companies that plan to sell shares to the public, in addition to requiring information such as profit and capitalization, the paper reported. Regulators on Sept. 7 restricted trading of Infodisc Technology Co's (訊碟科技) shares because of the company's finances.

  ■ Mango promotion succeeds

  Fresh mangoes from Taiwan have been well received in Japan and South Korea after promotion campaigns by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會), officials said yesterday. Just over 505 tons of > mangoes from southern Taiwan have been shipped to Japan this summer, marking a 6.7-fold increase from Taiwan's total mango exports to Japan last year, TAITRA officials said. Mangoes from Taiwan also made a comeback in South Korea, with 90 tons shipped by the end of June. Exports of the fruit were halted after Seoul shifted its diplomatic recognition from Tawan to China in Aug. 1992.

  ■ NT dollar trades higher

  The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded higher against its US counterpart, rising NT$0.018 to close at NT$33.907 on the Taiwan foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$392 million.
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