Capella agrees to buyout
Capella Microsystems (Taiwan) Inc (凌耀科技), which designs ambient-light sensors, yesterday said its board has agreed to a NT$6.05 billion (US$201.7 million) buyout proposal from US company Vishay Intertechnology Inc.
Vishay offered to buy Capella shares at NT$139 per share, representing a 22 percent premium compared with Capella’s closing price of NT$114 yesterday.
Capella Microsystems president Shih Cheng-chung (施振強) said the deal would help the new company develop sensors used in industrial devices, cars and the Internet of Things.
The transaction is expected to be completed in January next year, according to a company statement filed with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Quanta shares drop 2.75%
Shares of Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), the world’s largest contract notebook computer maker, shed 2.75 percent to close at NT$85 yesterday in Taipei trading after a report that company chairman Barry Lam (林百里) sold 30 million Quanta shares last month, lowering his stake to 10.76 percent from 11.54 percent.
The company on Thursday reported that sales for last month rose 2.4 percent from May and 4.8 percent from a year earlier to NT$71.8 billion, due to an increase in orders for laptops.
The company said it shipped 11.5 million laptops in the April-to-June quarter, an increase of 9.5 percent from 10.5 million units shipped in the previous three months.
In the first half of the year, cumulative sales totaled NT$430.34 billion, up 10.82 percent year-on-year, the company said.
Synnex’s revenue slides
Impacted by sliding sales of consumer electronic products, Synnex Technology International Corp (聯強), Asia’s largest distributor of information technology products and electronics components, on Thursday posted revenue of NT$24.46 billion, down 5.57 percent from May and 5.97 percent from a year earlier, the company said in a statement.
The weaker-than-expected sales last month pushed the company’s second-quarter revenue down 0.7 percent quarter-on-quarter and 1.5 percent year-on-year to NT$77.87 billion.
In the first half of the year, cumulative revenue increased 2 percent to NT$155.8 billion from the same period last year, the company said.
Relaxations to aid fund houses
The Financial Supervisory Commission on Thursday announced regulatory relaxations that would allow fund houses to trade gold, minerals and other commodities on the spot market with privately raised funds.
The opening is intended to give fund houses more investment flexibility, but the new investments must not exceed 40 percent of their net worth, the commission said.
Investments on the spot market and related securities may equal 100 percent of their net worth.
Fund houses may also invest in financial derivatives — such as futures and options — which target gold, minerals and other commodities, the commission said, capping such investments at 40 percent of the fund’s net worth.
Hung Sheng to sell new building
Hung Sheng Construction Co (宏盛建設) is to sell a new grade-A office building on Nanjing E Road in Taipei with an asking price of NT$20 billion, or NT$1.6 million per ping (3.3m2), property broker DTZ said on Thursday.
The building has 20 floors above ground and another five stories underground, in addition to 160 parking spaces, DTZ said.
Total floor space measures 11,350 ping on a 987 ping plot of land, the broker said.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS