Debt-ridden computer memory chipmaker ProMOS Technologies Inc (茂德科技) said yesterday it was seeking an additional NT$5 billion (US$148 million) in syndicated loans from local banks to pay debts due next week.
The capital injection could help the Hsinchu-based company solve pressing financial problems. ProMOS must repay roughly US$330 million in corporate bonds due on Feb. 14. The bondholders can exercise a put option to sell the bonds back to the chipmaker by maturity date.
“This is part of our greater efforts to raise funds to repay the corporate bonds,” company spokesman Ben Tseng (曾邦助) said by telephone.
ProMOS will provide manufacturing equipment worth more than NT$10 billion and guarantors as collateral for the loans, Tseng said, confirming a report by the Chinese-language Commercial Times yesterday.
Tseng declined to reveal the names of the guarantors, but Minister of Economic Affairs Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘) told a press conference yesterday that two companies had agreed to guarantee the full sum of NT$5 billion.
One of the companies is a chip packaging and testing firm headquartered in the US, Yiin said without elaborating.
The newspaper said ProMOS would secure NT$5 billion in short-term syndicated loans from the Bank of Taiwan and seven other local banks and that ProMOS would be required to repay them within a year based on an initial agreement reached at a second round of talks.
ProMOS said the report was partly speculation.
Tseng declined to comment on whether ProMOS would secure new capital from any other sources to pay its debts.
The chipmaker raised NT$3.39 billion by selling equipment and real estate in December and last month, it said in filings to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
ProMOS shares jumped 6.83 percent to close at NT$1.72 yesterday.
Shares of local rivals Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體) and Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) rose for the second straight trading day by 6.71 percent and 6.16 percent to NT$3.5 and NT$6.38 respectively.
The seizure of one of the largest known mercury shipments in history, moving from mines in Mexico to illegal Amazon gold mining zones, exposes the wide use of the toxic metal in the rainforest, according to authorities. Peru’s customs agency, SUNAT, found 4 tonnes of illegal mercury in Lima’s port district of Callao, according to a report by the non-profit Environmental Investigations Agency (EIA). “This SUNAT intervention has prevented this chemical from having a serious impact on people’s health and the environment, as can be seen in several areas of the country devastated by the illegal use of mercury and illicit activities,”
NEW PRODUCTS: MediaTek plans to roll out new products this quarter, including a flagship mobile phone chip and a GB10 chip that it is codeveloping with Nvidia Corp MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday projected that revenue this quarter would dip by 7 to 13 percent to between NT$130.1 billion and NT$140 billion (US$4.38 billion and US$4.71 billion), compared with NT$150.37 billion last quarter, which it attributed to subdued front-loading demand and unfavorable foreign exchange rates. The Hsinchu-based chip designer said that the forecast factored in the negative effects of an estimated 6 percent appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar against the greenback. “As some demand has been pulled into the first half of the year and resulted in a different quarterly pattern, we expect the third quarter revenue to decline sequentially,”
DIVERSIFYING: Taiwanese investors are reassessing their preference for US dollar assets and moving toward Europe amid a global shift away from the greenback Taiwanese investors are reassessing their long-held preference for US-dollar assets, shifting their bets to Europe in the latest move by global investors away from the greenback. Taiwanese funds holding European assets have seen an influx of investments recently, pushing their combined value to NT$13.7 billion (US$461 million) as of the end of last month, the highest since 2019, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Over the first half of this year, Taiwanese investors have also poured NT$14.1 billion into Europe-focused funds based overseas, bringing total assets up to NT$134.8 billion, according to data from the Securities Investment Trust and Consulting Association (SITCA),
Taiwan’s property transactions in the first half of this year fell 26.4 percent year-on-year to about 130,000 units, as credit controls and mortgage restrictions dampened demand, data from the Ministry of the Interior showed yesterday. Keelung saw the steepest decline, with transactions plummeting 45.6 percent to just 2,041 units — the lowest since the ministry began its survey in 2006. In contrast, Miaoli County was the only region to experience year-on-year growth, with transactions rising 2.4 percent to 3,229 units. Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) attributed the increase in deals in Miaoli, particularly Jhunan (竹南) and Toufen (頭份) townships, to spillover demand
RSS