Taroko Textile Corp (大魯閣纖維), a textile company aiming to transform itself into an operator of small-sized sports and recreation centers, said yesterday that it aims to set up 20 centers in China in the next three years after the first center it built in China’s Jiangsu province became profitable in the second month of operation.
The company launched the first center in April in a mall built by Japan-based retail and financial service provider Aeon Group in a suburban area of Jiangsu, and the center generated revenue of a 650,000 yuan (US$96,700) in May, exceeding its break-even point of 400,000 yuan a month, Rex Lin (林志松), CEO of the company’s overseas operations, said yesterday.
Jerry Hsu (許俊麒), vice president of Taroko, said that sales were higher than the company had forecast, as the suburban mall attracted more customers than they expected.
Taroko is expected to launch a center in Chengdu, China in October and another in Jinan, Shandong, China by the end of this year, Hsu said, adding that the company has high hopes for its Chengdu center.
Taroko’s sports and recreation center in Chengdu is located in a complex of department stores and office buildings built by Hong Kong-based real estate developer Wharf (Holdings) Ltd (九龍倉), and Taroko expects sales at the center to be higher than the one in Jiangsu, Hsu said.
By the end of next year, Taroko aims to increase the number of its centers in China to 10, Hsu said.
The 30 centers in Taiwan generated revenue of NT$66.7 million (US$2.22 million) last year, accounting for 7.43 percent of Taroko’s revenue of NT$897.94 million last year, according to the company.
With 92.57 percent of its revenue from the textile division, sales from its real-estate development and sports and recreation divisions will rise to above 50 percent from 2016, after its new mall in Greater Kaohsiung becomes operational at the end of next year, Hsu said.
The company plans to spend NT$4 billion to build the mall, which is the first project of the company’s real estate development division, and the mall is expected to generate NT$5 billion a year starting 2016, according to Taroko.
From January through last month, Taroko reported revenue of NT$429.32 million, down 12.13 percent from NT$488.59 million a year ago, according to the company’s filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Hsu said the decline was because the company closed its weaving division in China last year due to low profit margins.
Last quarter, the company registered losses of NT$60.76 million, up 4.67 percent from losses of NT$58.03 million the previous year, according to the filing.
Hsu said it would be difficult for the company to get back into the black this year because its real-estate development division would incur losses of NT$100 million in both this year and next year by building the mall in Kaohsiung.
However, Taroko has land properties with a market value of NT$1 billion, which could boost its profit if it can sell them, Hsu said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) secured a record 70.2 percent share of the global foundry business in the second quarter, up from 67.6 percent the previous quarter, and continued widening its lead over second-placed Samsung Electronics Co, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said on Monday. TSMC posted US$30.24 billion in sales in the April-to-June period, up 18.5 percent from the previous quarter, driven by major smartphone customers entering their ramp-up cycle and robust demand for artificial intelligence chips, laptops and PCs, which boosted wafer shipments and average selling prices, TrendForce said in a report. Samsung’s sales also grew in the second quarter, up
On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump weighed in on a pressing national issue: The rebranding of a restaurant chain. Last week, Cracker Barrel, a Tennessee company whose nationwide locations lean heavily on a cozy, old-timey aesthetic — “rocking chairs on the porch, a warm fire in the hearth, peg games on the table” — announced it was updating its logo. Uncle Herschel, the man who once appeared next to the letters with a barrel, was gone. It sparked ire on the right, with Donald Trump Jr leading a charge against the rebranding: “WTF is wrong with Cracker Barrel?!” Later, Trump Sr weighed
HEADWINDS: Upfront investment is unavoidable in the merger, but cost savings would materialize over time, TS Financial Holding Co president Welch Lin said TS Financial Holding Co (台新新光金控) said it would take about two years before the benefits of its merger with Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控) become evident, as the group prioritizes the consolidation of its major subsidiaries. “The group’s priority is to complete the consolidation of different subsidiaries,” Welch Lin (林維俊), president of the nation’s fourth-largest financial conglomerate by assets, told reporters during its first earnings briefing since the merger took effect on July 24. The asset management units are scheduled to merge in November, followed by life insurance in January next year and securities operations in April, Lin said. Banking integration,
LOOPHOLES: The move is to end a break that was aiding foreign producers without any similar benefit for US manufacturers, the US Department of Commerce said US President Donald Trump’s administration would make it harder for Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc to ship critical equipment to their chipmaking operations in China, dealing a potential blow to the companies’ production in the world’s largest semiconductor market. The US Department of Commerce in a notice published on Friday said that it was revoking waivers for Samsung and SK Hynix to use US technologies in their Chinese operations. The companies had been operating in China under regulations that allow them to import chipmaking equipment without applying for a new license each time. The move would revise what is known
RSS