The Fair Trade Commission yesterday approved with conditions the acquisition of Kbro Co (凱擘), the nation’s largest cable TV operator, by Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) and his brother Richard Tsai (蔡明興), members of one of the nation’s richest families.
Granting the conditional approval, the commission said it does not oppose the Tsai family’s acquisition of Kbro via recently established Da-fu Media (大富媒體), but that the buyout would be restricted by 13 conditions to assuage monopoly concerns.
Topping the list of strings attached is that Da-fu Media cannot hold or acquire, directly or indirectly, shares in any other cable TV company or of Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大), which is also controlled by the Tsai family, without prior approval from the Fair Trade Commission.
Daniel Tsai, chairman of Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), and his brother, who is chairman of Taiwan Mobile, are buying Kbro from the Carlyle Group for a reported NT$65.3 billion (US$2.13 billion), which will hand them the most influential cable TV group in the nation.
Da-fu Media was created to allow the Tsai family to get around a law banning public ownership of media groups. Since Da-fu Media does not have any government shareholders, it does not contravene the law, the National Communications Commission (NCC), the government’s media regulator, said in September.
The Tsai brothers previously attempted to acquire Kbro through Taiwan Mobile, but the NCC blocked the deal because the Taipei City Government holds a 15 percent stake in Taiwan Mobile’s majority shareholder, Fubon Financial, which is also controlled by the Tsai family.
Fair Trade Commission spokeswoman Shih Hui-fen (施惠芬) said that once the acquisition goes through, the number of households to which the Tsai family could provide cable TV services cannot exceed 33 percent of the nation’s total number of cable TV subscribers, while the number of channels they own cannot exceed 25 percent of the total number of available cable TV channels.
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
RSS