State-run Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行), the nation's largest lender, said yesterday that it would swap one of its own shares for every two shares of state-owned Central Trust of China (中央信託局) when the two banks merge.
Bank of Taiwan will issue 500 million new shares for the merger, which was announced in November last year, it said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
The merger is scheduled for July 1 next year, the statement read.
Bank of Taiwan will acquire Central Trust of China to create the nation's largest financial group, under a government plan to make lenders more competitive.
The merger will form a group that controls 11.6 percent of the market, according to the Ministry of Finance.
Meanwhile, Standard & Poor's (S&P) Ratings Services yesterday reaffirmed its "A+" long-term and "A-1" short-term counterparty credit ratings on Bank of Taiwan with a stable outlook.
"The ratings reflect the bank's strong franchise and market position, satisfactory asset quality, high liquidity and sound capitalization," S&P's credit analyst Susan Chu (朱素徵) said.
"Additional positive rating factors include the bank's systemic importance to Taiwan's financial services industry, administrative functions it carries out on behalf of the government, and its 100 percent ownership by the government," Chu said.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
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