The state-controlled Bank of Taiwan (臺灣銀行) yesterday said it had no timetable for granting NT$3 billion (US$90 million) in bank loans to the nation’s cash-strapped computer memory chipmaker ProMOS Technologies Inc (茂德科技) because of unresolved concerns.
Bank of Taiwan, the biggest among several credit banks lending funds to ProMOS, made the comments on behalf of seven other credit banks.
In mid-December, the credit banks gave an initial approval to the nation’s third-largest computer memory chipmaker, which has planned to use the new loan to repay debt originally due on Feb. 14.
“The credit banks need to talk to ProMOS to help solve some problems,” said Bank of Taiwan spokesman Tsai Fu-thi (蔡富吉). “At present, we do not have a timetable for the capital injection.”
Tsai declined to reveal what made the credit banks hesitate to give final approval for the new bank loans. On March 24, Tsai said one of their concerns was that ProMOS chairman Chen Min-liang (陳民良) had not decided to act as a joint guarantor for the loans.
ProMOS overcame the first barrier to obtain the new loans after the chipmaker won an approval from a majority, or 80 percent, of its convertible bond holders for its offer to buy back US$335 million in outstanding corporate bonds at a discount, meeting the requirement for entering a final review of the loans.
On Thursday night, Hsinchu-based ProMOS said it planned to put back the transaction date of the bond buyback as credit banks had requested a clearer picture of the nation’s computer memory industry in the wake of new developments, a company filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange said.
The transaction was originally set for yesterday.
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