Asia Pacific Broadband Telecom Co's (亞太固網) major shareholders, which include Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐國際商), yesterday nominated vice chairman Wang Lin-tai (王令台) as temporary chairman.
The decision was made at an extraordinary board meeting yesterday after the government announced plans to send its own auditors and experts to supervise the telecoms operator.
"To safeguard the interests of subscribers and shareholders, the board members agreed to nominate Wang as temporary company chairman," Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA,
The TRA, which holds a 12.18 percent stake in the unlisted Asia-Pacific Broadband Telecom, is one of the fixed-line operator's major shareholders.
Chen was one of the 18 members of the 33-seat board who attended the meeting yesterday.
At a meeting which lasted two hours, the board also decided to recruit a team composed of the Small Business Integrated Assistance Foundation (中小企業聯合輔導基金會) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs and privately-run KPMG International (安侯建業會計師事務所) to help audit the firm's financial statements, Chen said.
The board expects the auditors to need at least six weeks to complete their examination of the financial reports of Asia Pacific Broadband Telecom, Chen said.
This task force would also supervise the telecom operator's investments in non-core businesses, including the companies affiliated with the debt-ridden Rebar Asia Pacific Group (力霸亞太企業集團), he added.
During yesterday's meeting, Wang told board members that the company earned NT$300 million (US$9.14 million) from its core business last year, although the net value declined to around NT$5 per share from NT$9 per share in 2005, after booking NT$30 billion in asset impairment, company sources said.
The board yesterday neither approved the financial statement nor discussed a rumored board shake-up, Chen said.
Asia Pacific Broadband Telecom has NT$65.68 billion in capital and 150,000 subscribers, as well as 1,300 employees.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs said last night that it expected to see the preliminary audit report within a week, the Central News Agency reported, without citing a source.
The ministry reiterated that the government's priority was to clarify the company's financial state, before tackling changes in its board and management, the report said.
The Ministry of Finance yesterday supported the economics ministry's stance in dealing with the telecom firm's financial woes first.
On Thursday, the finance ministry suggested that the Rebar Group relinquish 10 of its 22 board seats at the extraordinary board meeting, giving state shareholders a controlling stake in the board.
In related news, Vice Minister of Justice Chu Nan (朱楠) said yesterday that the ministry was communicating with the US to achieve greater flexibility in the two countries' mutual legal assistance agreement concerning the Rebar case.
Chu said the ministry hoped that the US would be able to declare Rebar Asia Pacific Group chairman Wang You-theng (
The official said that the ministry was eager for the US to approve prosecutors' requests to apprehend the couple and to freeze any assets the Wang family may have in the US.
Chu said that a total of 81 individuals were currently banned from leaving the country as a result of the Rebar scandal.
Additional reporting by Rich Chang
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
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
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
PARTNERSHIPS: TSMC said it has been working with multiple memorychip makers for more than two years to provide a full spectrum of solutions to address AI demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has been collaborating with multiple memorychip makers in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications for more than two years, refuting South Korean media report's about an unprecedented partnership with Samsung Electronics Co. As Samsung is competing with TSMC for a bigger foundry business, any cooperation between the two technology heavyweights would catch the eyes of investors and experts in the semiconductor industry. “We have been working with memory partners, including Micron, Samsung Memory and SK Hynix, on HBM solutions for more than two years, aiming to advance 3D integrated circuit
RSS