REAL ESTATE
Banks move on Ting Lu land
Creditor banks yesterday filed two motions for provisional attachments of assets and land held by a subsidiary of scandal-plagued Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團) due to it defaulting on a loan. The motions were filed to protect the creditor banks after Ting Lu Development Co (頂率開發), Ting Hsin Group’s real-estate unit, failed to pay the NT$6.5 billion (US$205 million) it owed on a syndicated loan by the deadline on Wednesday last week. The loan syndicate petitioned the Shilin District Court to freeze Ting Lu’s Neihu (內湖), Taipei, headquarters and also asked the Banciao District Court in New Taipei City to seize a plot of land in the municipality’s Sanchong District (三重) that the developer used as collateral in the syndicated loan. The creditor banks said that Ting Lu could avoid the seizure of its assets if it repays the loan before the courts hand down their rulings on the bank’s requests, with the verdicts expected within a week. The Ministry of Finance said the legal action taken by the banks was aimed at ensuring the creditors’ rights. Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐國際商銀), the lead bank in the loan consortium, said it expected the sale of the plot of land in Sanchong would raise enough money to pay off the loan.
PANEL MAKERS
Blaze damages TPK plant
Touch-panel manufacturer TPK Holding Co (宸鴻) yesterday said that a fire has damaged part of its advanced touch-on-lens (TOL) technology equipment at its factory in Xiamen in China’s Fujian Province. No casualties from the blaze were reported, the company said in a statement filed with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The fire broke out at noon on Saturday and was put out about two hours later.TPK said it hopes to resume production at the factory as soon as possible as the fire did not directly affect equipment for the mass production of TOL touch screens. Only equipment for product sampling and researching was damaged, it said. To cope with the disruption of production, TPK plans to adjust its production lines in adjacent factories upward, it said. The company said it would seek compensation from its insurance company.
TECHNOLOGY
SPIL posts 5% decline
Siliconware Precision Industries Co Ltd (SPIL, 矽品精密), the world’s No. 2 chip packager, yesterday posted a 5 percent sequential decline in revenue after recording a NT$6.85 billion figure for last month. SPIL made NT$7.21 billion in November last year, bringing its revenue to NT$21.43 billion for the final quarter of that year — a figure representing a 1 percent sequential drop from the previous quarter’s NT$21.65 billion. Last quarter’s revenue beat the forecast SPIL made in October, when it had expected revenue to shrink by between 3 and 9 percent quarter-on-quarter to a range of NT$21 billion to NT$19.7 billion.
AUTO INDUSTRY
Kenda plans Taiwan plant
Tire manufacturer Kenda Rubber Industrial Co (建大輪胎) yesterday said that its board has approved a plan to spend a maximum of NT$1 billion to buy a piece of land in central Taiwan that it will build a new factory on. The company plans to set up a special task to scout for the best site, according to a statement that it submitted to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. In a separate filing, the tire maker said its board also gave the go-ahead on its proposal to budget NT$5 billion to build a research center in the same region of the country.
JITTERS: Nexperia has a 20 percent market share for chips powering simpler features such as window controls, and changing supply chains could take years European carmakers are looking into ways to scratch components made with parts from China, spooked by deepening geopolitical spats playing out through chipmaker Nexperia BV and Beijing’s export controls on rare earths. To protect operations from trade ructions, several automakers are pushing major suppliers to find permanent alternatives to Chinese semiconductors, people familiar with the matter said. The industry is considering broader changes to its supply chain to adapt to shifting geopolitics, Europe’s main suppliers lobby CLEPA head Matthias Zink said. “We had some indications already — questions like: ‘How can you supply me without this dependency on China?’” Zink, who also
At least US$50 million for the freedom of an Emirati sheikh: That is the king’s ransom paid two weeks ago to militants linked to al-Qaeda who are pushing to topple the Malian government and impose Islamic law. Alongside a crippling fuel blockade, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) has made kidnapping wealthy foreigners for a ransom a pillar of its strategy of “economic jihad.” Its goal: Oust the junta, which has struggled to contain Mali’s decade-long insurgency since taking power following back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, by scaring away investors and paralyzing the west African country’s economy.
Tax revenue from securities transactions last month increased 41.9 percent from a year earlier to NT$30.3 billion (US$975.8 million), rising on an annual basis for the third consecutive month and marking the highest for the month of October as Taiwanese stocks continued to perform strongly, data released by the Ministry of Finance showed yesterday. Last month, the TAIEX surged 2,412.81 points, or 9.34 percent, marking its largest-ever monthly rise for October as market sentiment was buoyed by a nearly 15 percent gain in contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which accounts for more than 40 percent of the
BUST FEARS: While a KMT legislator asked if an AI bubble could affect Taiwan, the DGBAS minister said the sector appears on track to continue growing The local property market has cooled down moderately following a series of credit control measures designed to contain speculation, the central bank said yesterday, while remaining tight-lipped about potential rule relaxations. Lawmakers in a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee voiced concerns to central bank officials that the credit control measures have adversely affected the government’s tax income and small and medium-sized property developers, with limited positive effects. Housing prices have been climbing since 2016, even when the central bank imposed its first set of control measures in 2020, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) said. “Since the second half of
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