The board of Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控) yesterday approved a plan to raise more than NT$60 billion (US1.9 billion) in new capital, paving the way for its bid to acquire the local life insurance unit of American International Group Inc (AIG).
The nation’s third-largest financial service provider said in a statement it intends to issue 3.35 billion common shares on the open market and via subscription by employees and existing shareholders to strengthen its financial health.
“The capital increase is intended to boost financial strength for long-term operations and cross-industry development,” the company said.
The new shares, priced at NT$18 each, are expected to bring in an extra NT$60.3 billion in capital, the company said. It plans to sell 10 percent on the local bourse and offer another 10 percent to employees, with the remaining 80 percent to be subscribed by existing shareholders. Chinatrust Financial president Daniel Wu (吳一揆) last month reiterated keen interest in buying AIG’s 97.57 percent stake in Nan Shan Insurance Co (南山人壽), as the move may be complementary to the group’s bank-centric businesses.
“The company has no intention of switching acquisition targets as the process entails a lengthy review,” Wu said last month.
Chinatrust Financial, which lost in the bidding for Nan Shan to a Hong Kong consortium last year, has refused to comment on the size of any future acquisition.
Cathay Financial Holdings Co (國泰金控), Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) and a consortium led by Ruentex Group (潤泰集團) chairman Samuel Yin (尹衍樑) have also expressed interest in Nan Shan.
All prospective buyers are due to submit bids on Dec. 3 and AIG may pick a winner or introduce a closer scrutiny one week later, a source with knowledge of the process said by telephone yesterday. A closer scrutiny means to choose from two finalists, the source said.
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
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
POWER BUILDUP: Powered by Nvidia’s B200 Blackwell chips, the data center would support MediaTek’s computing power demand and business growth, the company said Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center with a maximum capacity of 45 megawatts to meet its rising demand for computing power required to develop new advanced chips for AI applications. The company has completed the first-phase computing power buildup at the data center in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), providing 15 megawatts of capacity to support its research and development (R&D) capabilities, despite an industrywide shortage of key components, MediaTek said. Supply constraints have plagued a wide range of key components, including memory chips, solid-state drives, power supply units and central
IMAGE SENSORS: The Japanese company would be the controlling shareholder of the venture, with development and production lines to be set up in Kumamoto Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corp to create a joint venture to develop and produce next-generation images sensors. The partnership seeks to explore and address emerging opportunities in physical artificial intelligence (AI) applications, such as automotive and robotics, paving the way for innovations and expanded technological advancements, TSMC said in a statement. Sony would be the majority and controlling shareholder of the joint venture, the statement said, adding that the company would set up development and production lines in its newly constructed fab in Kumamoto Prefecture’s
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