Motech Industries Inc (茂迪), the nation’s largest solar cell maker, said yesterday it had signed an agreement with GE Energy to buy a solar module assembly operation in Delaware for US$4.54 million.
The deal is part of Motech’s efforts to divert dramatic price erosion. Global makers of solar cells are recovering from a tough year hit by oversupply and the economic recession, which has caused demand to fall and prices to plummet since last year. At the same time, government subsidies for solar installation dropped during the economic slump.
US MARKET
The deal will help the company “enter the US’ end market for solar [panels] on the one hand and on the other hand will help lessen pricing pressure in the competitive solar cell [market],” Motech chief financial executive Norman Shen (沈楨林) said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
Shares of Motech rallied 5.76 percent yesterday, beating the benchmark TAIEX index’s loss of 0.05 percent.
The deal will also “enhance the company’s deployment in the vertical integration of the solar industry supply chain,” Shen said.
Under the agreement, Motech will be granted the rights to use GE Energy’s module trademark for two years, the company said. In addition, Motech will assume responsibility for providing warranty services to GE Energy’s existing module clients.
IN-HOUSE CAPABILITIES
Motech is pursuing a vertical integration strategy to enhance its competitiveness. The company has in-house ingot and wafer capabilities and has a major stake in AE Corp, which makes polysilicon, a key raw material for solar wafers.
The GE Energy plant, located in Newark, Delaware, employs 75 people, Motech said in a statement on its Web site.
The transaction is set to close early next month.
Motech has seen four consecutive quarterly losses since the fourth quarter of last year, although its third-quarter losses narrowed 14.1 percent to NT$201 million from the previous quarter.
As of Sept. 30, the firm’s cash and equivalent fell 9 percent to around NT$3.72 billion from NT$4.1 billion a year earlier.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Taiwan has enough crude oil reserves for more than 100 days and sufficient natural gas reserves for more than 11 days, both above the regulatory safety requirement, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, adding that the government would prioritize domestic price stability as conflicts in the Middle East continue. Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month, Kung told reporters after meeting with representatives from business groups at the ministry in Taipei. The ministry has been holding daily cross-ministry meetings at the Executive Yuan to ensure
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI
A new worry has been rippling across the stock market lately: Entire businesses, not just their employees, might be thrown out of work. While most economists say fears of an artificial intelligence (AI) job apocalypse are overblown, seismic shifts have happened in the past after big tech breakthroughs. The IT revolution of the 1990s led to a surge in productivity that sped up the US economy for several years. It also rendered companies or even industries largely redundant — from travel agents and stockbrokers to classified advertising and newspapers, or video rental stores. Economists expect AI would deliver higher productivity,
RSS