Quake leaves finances alone
Taiwan’s financial institutions and companies have not experienced any failures or crises related to the disaster in Japan, the Financial Supervisory Commission said in a statement on its Web site yesterday.
Taiwanese banks have a total of NT$74.6 billion (US$2.53 billion) in Japan-related exposure, it said. Securities, futures and investment trusts have a total of NT$15.4 billion in exposure and insurance companies have NT$14.1 billion, it said.
Fubon expands China presence
Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) yesterday expanded further in China after Xiamen City Commercial Bank (廈門商銀), of which the group owns a 20 percent stake, opened a branch in Quangzhou, Fujian Province.
The nation’s second-largest financial conglomerate said the new branch came in line with its attempt to strengthen its presence in China and better serve Taiwanese businesspeople there.
To that end, Fubon said it would open more branches in Chongqing, Tianjin, Zhangzhou and Nanchang this year and next year.
Fubon raises bid for unit
Fubon Financial raised the offering price to take its Fubon Bank (Hong Kong) Ltd (富銀香港) unit private by 4 percent, it said in a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing.
Fubon Financial is offering HK$5.20 per share for the 25 percent of the Hong Kong unit it doesn’t already own, from an original offer of HK$5.00, it said.
Formosa shuts oil refinery
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), Taiwan’s only publicly traded oil refiner, said it shut its No. 1 crude distillation unit on -Sunday for scheduled maintenance.
Crude processing will fall to between 370,000 and 380,000 barrels a day this month on average, from about 480,000 barrels last month, Lin Keh-yen (林克彥), a company spokesman, said by telephone yesterday. The stoppage will last about 40 days, he said.
The company halted its No. 1 residue desulfurization unit and No. 1 residual fluid catalytic cracker for maintenance yesterday along with the crude processing plant, he said.
Its 540,000-barrel-a-day -Mailiao refinery has three crude distillation units, each able to process 180,000 barrels a day. It owns three naphtha processing plants with a combined annual capacity of 2.935 million tonnes of ethylene, a raw material for plastics, chemicals and synthetic fibers.
Wistron income passes NT$3bn
Local contract laptop computer maker Wistron Corp (緯創) yesterday said net income amounted to NT$3.1 billion, or NT$1.59 per share, in the fourth quarter last year. Revenue was NT$160.8 billion, the company said in a statement.
That brought the full-year net profits to NT$12 billion, or earnings per share of NT$6.15, up 31 percent from 2009, Wistron said. The PC company did not provide comparative figures.
That was a year-on-year rise of 31.7 percent, a company statement said. Revenue was up 12.5 percent to NT$615.2 billion last year, it said.
UMC to invest in LEDs
UMC New Business Investment Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 2 contract chipmaker, plans to invest US$14.8 million in a light-emitting diode chip company in China, parent United Microelectronics Corp said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
NT rises against US dollar
The New Taiwan dollar rose against the US dollar yesterday, up NT$0.09 to close at NT$29.509.
Turnover totaled US$791 million during the trading session.
Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登精密), the sole extreme ultraviolet pod supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), yesterday said it has trimmed its revenue growth target for this year as US tariffs are likely to depress customer demand and weigh on the whole supply chain. Gudeng’s remarks came after the US on Monday notified 14 countries, including Japan and South Korea, of new tariff rates that are set to take effect on Aug. 1. Taiwan is still negotiating for a rate lower than the 32 percent “reciprocal” tariffs announced by the US in April, which it later postponed to today. The
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said its materials management head, Vanessa Lee (李文如), had tendered her resignation for personal reasons. The personnel adjustment takes effect tomorrow, TSMC said in a statement. The latest development came one month after Lee reportedly took leave from the middle of last month. Cliff Hou (侯永清), senior vice president and deputy cochief operating officer, is to concurrently take on the role of head of the materials management division, which has been under his supervision, TSMC said. Lee, who joined TSMC in 2022, was appointed senior director of materials management and
MAJOR CONTRIBUTOR: Revenue from AI servers made up more than 50 percent of Wistron’s total server revenue in the second quarter, the company said Wistron Corp (緯創) on Tuesday reported a 135.6 percent year-on-year surge in revenue for last month, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, with the momentum expected to extend into the third quarter. Revenue last month reached NT$209.18 billion (US$7.2 billion), a record high for June, bringing second-quarter revenue to NT$551.29 billion, a 129.47 percent annual increase, the company said. Revenue in the first half of the year totaled NT$897.77 billion, up 87.36 percent from a year earlier and also a record high for the period, it said. The company remains cautiously optimistic about AI server shipments in the third quarter,
STABLE RESULTS: Despite June’s lower consolidated revenue, second-quarter sales still reached a record high, driven by demand for chips for AI applications Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales of NT$263.71 billion (US$9.02 billion) for last month, its second-lowest monthly result this year. The world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement that its revenue last month only fared better than the NT$260.01 billion posted in February. Last month’s figure rose 26.9 percent from a year earlier, but slumped 17.7 percent from May, the company said. However, second-quarter revenue reached NT$933.8 billion, a record high for a single quarter, company data showed. The figure represented growth of 11.26 percent from the first quarter and 38.6 percent from a year earlier. Previously, TSMC said that
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