Tue, Jun 05, 2007 page11

• Business Briefs

  • STAFF WRITER, WITH AGENCIES
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  TSMC eyes Hynix facilities

  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufactu-ring Co (TSMC, 台積電) may be in talks to buy production facilities from South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor Inc for approximately US$1 billion, CLSA Asia Pacific Markets reported, without citing a source.

  TSMC could buy manufacturing lines that make chips from wafers measuring 8 inches in diameter, CLSA analysts, including Taipei-based Cheng Ming-kai (鄭名凱), wrote in a report dated Sunday. The facilities, which could add 129,000 wafers a month, could be converted to make logic chips from memory chips, Cheng wrote.

  Tzeng Jinnhaw (曾晉皓), a spokesman at Hsinchu-based TSMC, the world's largest custom chipmaker, said the company had been looking to buy 8-inch manufacturing equipment, declining to confirm the company's interest in Hynix's facilities.

  TSMC could generate a 30 percent return on the investment, the report said.

  Temporary refinery shutdown

  CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油), the nation's state-owned oil refiner, will shut a crude distillation unit at its Taoyuan refinery in the middle of October for maintenance.

  The outage will last about 30 days, said a company official, who asked not to be identified because of company policy. The refinery has two such facilities and each unit is able to process 100,000 barrels of crude a day.

  The Taoyuan refinery typically conducts maintenance during the northern hemisphere winter, when northeast winds make docking difficult for oil tankers, the official said.

  Asustek predicts rising revenues

  Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦), the world's largest maker of boards connecting computer parts, forecast revenues would rise 35 percent this year, driven by sales of notebook computers.

  Sales are expected to reach US$23 billion this year, Benson Lin (林宗樑), the Taipei-based company's Asia-Pacific general manager, said yesterday.

  Analysts project revenue will climb to NT$794 billion (US$24 billion) this year after climbing 45 percent to a record NT$560 billion last year, the average of 20 estimates compiled by Bloomberg showed.

  Asustek, which makes computers for Apple Inc and game consoles for Sony Corp, will sell more products under its own Asus brand to increase profitability. Shipments of Asus-branded notebook computers will exceed 4 million this year after they jumped 78 percent to 2.7 million last year, Lin said.

  Chinatrust rating reaffirmed

  Taiwan Ratings Services and Fitch Ratings yesterday reaffirmed their ratings on Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控) and its banking arm after it acquired the financially fragile Enterprise Bank of Hualien (花蓮企銀) last week.

  The assets of Hualien Bank under government supervision constituted 1.6 percent of Chinatrust Commercial Bank's (中國信託商銀) total assets as of March. Chinatrust Commercial should be able to absorb the acquisition risks, given the parent group's sound financial profile and its past track record of managing acquisitions, Taiwan Ratings said.

  Chinatrust Commercial outbid four rivals in a government-held auction to buy the bank with an offer of the lowest bid worth NT$4.49 billion (US$135.5 million) last Thursday, the amount the government's financial restructuring fund needs to pay out to the winning bidder to help absorb the Hualien lender, including its bad loans.

  NT gains on greenback

  The New Taiwan dollar gained NT$0.004 to close at NT$33.005 against the US dollar. Turnover was US$940 million.
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