Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (篔闇鼣蝁) said yesterday its board approved a proposal to pay NT$2.80 in cash dividends per share based on NT$9.23 billion (US$294.8 million) in earnings last year, bringing the payout ratio to 99 percent.
That represented a dividend yield of 7.33 percent as the stock closed at NT$38.20 yesterday.
The board also agreed to boost the firm＊s capital spending by 38 percent to NT$8.86 billion this year from NT$6.41 billion last year, with half of the amount to be used for capacity enhancement.
This year, Far EasTone predicted net income would grow 0.5 percent to NT$9.27 billion and revenue would rise 3.35 percent to NT$62.07 billion, from NT$60.06 billion last year.
The board also gave the go-ahead for the sale of 444 million shares via private placement, paving the way for a renewed effort to sell a 12 percent stake to China Mobile Ltd (齌玿儦婧) for NT$17.77 billion this year.
The approval came ahead of a deadline set by the two companies in April last year to complete the deal, which has been stalled because of government restrictions.
Chunghwa Telecom Co (齌?鼣蝁), meanwhile, said its board approved the distribution of NT$4.06 in cash dividends per share, or a dividend yield of 6.58 percent based on the stock＊s closing price of NT$61.7 yesterday.
The company said net profit would slide 5.42 percent 〝quarter-on-quarter and 0.35 percent year-on-year to NT$11.43 billion this quarter. Revenue would drop 0.86 percent quarter-on-quarter to NT$45.12 billion this quarter after a regulatory price reduction program takes effect this month.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
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