EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空), Taiwan's second-largest carrier, is seeking a NT$10.4 billion (US$331.1 million) loan to buy two aircraft from Boeing Co, according to bankers involved in the deal.
EVA Airways is purchasing the Boeing 777-300ERs to meet rising passenger traffic. As many as 3.73 million people traveled through the nation's international airports in the first two months of this year, 8 percent more than last year, according to the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics.
About 10 banks including Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行) and International Commercial Bank of China (中國國際商銀) are bidding for the loan, which is for 12 years, bankers said.
The carrier filled 79 percent of seats in the first quarter, up from 78 percent a year ago while the use of cargo space climbed to 74 percent from 72 percent, EVA Airways said last Tuesday.
EVA Airways, based outside Taipei, is renewing its long-haul fleet to cut fuel costs and win passengers. It ordered 12 Boeing 777-300ER airplanes, two of which it has received, and three 777-200LRs, according to the company. The airline will fly the new planes to Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco and Europe.
EVA Airways' largest local rival China Airlines (華航) joined EVA in expanding its fleet, renting two new planes last month from leasing companies Chai Lease Finance Corp and All Win International Finance Corp. The two companies borrowed NT$8 billion for 12 years to buy the two planes that China Airlines wanted to rent.
The leasing companies paid an interest margin of 45 basis points, or 0.45 percentage point, over the market interest rate on commercial paper, for each loan, bankers said. Commercial paper is an unsecured short-term promise to repay principal on a specific date.
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
RSS