Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團) yesterday said it would keep its internal discussions over the buyout of the Taiwanese media outlets of Hong Kong-listed Next Media Group (壹傳媒集團) secret until the deal is signed on Saturday.
FPG, the nation’s biggest diversified industrial company, refused to say whether it would raise its share proportion in the buyout plan.
Local media yesterday said the group might have to increase its shareholding after the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) on Tuesday asked Jeffrey Koo Jr (辜仲諒), the eldest son of Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控) founder and chairman Jeffrey Koo (辜濂松), not to hold more than a 20 percent stake in Next Media’s Taiwan operations.
On Saturday last week, FPG chairman William Wong (王文淵) said the group would hold a meeting yesterday to discuss the buyout. However, the group abruptly canceled the meeting at noon yesterday, saying it had completed its discussions on Tuesday.
Shares of the group’s four core subsidiaries extended their losses yesterday in Taipei trading from Tuesday, except for Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), which was unchanged at NT$80.1.
Formosa Plastics Corp (FPC, 台塑) saw its shares lose 3.18 percent to NT$70, Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠), dropped 1.43 percent to end at NT$48.40, while Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp (台灣化纖) closed down 1.95 percent at NT$60.3.
In Hong Kong, Next Media unexpectedly suspended trading of its shares at 10:08am, after they fell 12.987 percent to HK$1.34. Its shares fell 2.6 percent on Tuesday after it warned on Monday of “a substantial loss” for the first half of the year because of write-offs at its multimedia division in Taiwan.
Last month, Koo Jr inked a memorandum of understanding with Hong Kong mogul Jimmy Lai (黎智英) to buy Next Media’s Taiwan operations, including the Apple Daily, Next Magazine and Next TV (壹電視) for NT$17.5 billion (US$600.86 million).
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
Taiwanese manufacturers have a chance to play a key role in the humanoid robot supply chain, Tongtai Machine and Tool Co (東台精機) chairman Yen Jui-hsiung (嚴瑞雄) said yesterday. That is because Taiwanese companies are capable of making key parts needed for humanoid robots to move, such as harmonic drives and planetary gearboxes, Yen said. This ability to produce these key elements could help Taiwanese manufacturers “become part of the US supply chain,” he added. Yen made the remarks a day after Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) are jointly
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