SEMICONDUCTORS
Silergy to buy Maxim units
Power management IC designer Silergy Corp (矽力杰) yesterday said it would acquire Maxim Integrated Products Inc’s smart meter and energy monitoring and management business units for US$105 million. Silergy said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange that the deal is expected to be closed in the first quarter of the year, and that it aims to increase the Taiwanese firm’s share in the European and US markets through widening its customer base and more extensive product lines. After the purchase, the whole team of Maxim’s acquired department will remain in the US. Silergy said it is evaluating different financial tools to finance the deal, as it held a cash balance of NT$2.4 billion (US$72.6 million) as of Sept. 30. “We see great synergies in the deal, and this is a positive move for Silergy to tap into the high growth, high margin IoT [Internet of Things] and industrial market,” Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) said in a client note yesterday. While Silergy has not disclosed financial details, the deal is expected to be revenue and earnings accretive, Yuanta said.
RENEWABLE ENERGY
Gintech posts US$4.9m profit
Taiwanese solar cell maker Gintech Energy Corp (昱 晶) yesterday said it made NT$162 million (US$4.9 million) in net profit for November after swimming back to profits of NT$139 million in the third quarter. That represents earnings per share of NT$0.36. Gintech lost NT$696 million in the third quarter of last year, according to a company statement submitted to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The company released the monthly earnings at the request of the stock exchange regulator due to an unusual spike in the stock price. Gintech shares surged about 28 percent over the past 15 days to close at NT$32.05 yesterday.
SMARTPHONES
ZenFone centers expanded
Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) yesterday said it plans to increase the locations offering one-hour fast maintenance service for its smartphone this year, after introducing the service to six cities in China last month. The service allows ZenFone holders to make reservations on Asustek’s official Web site, and then to have their smartphone’s problems fixed within an hour in Asustek’s maintenance offices, the company said. The introduction of the service is part of the firm’s strategy to enhance its customer services, Asustek said, which has thus far launched such services in Taiwan, Hong Kong and six cities in China. The company plans to provide it in more big cities in China and ASEAN this year.
BANKING
OBUs’ assets drop 1.7%
The 62 offshore banking units (OBUs) of banks operating in Taiwan posted total assets of US$187.01 billion in November, down US$3.159 billion, or 1.7 percent, from the previous month, the central bank said in a statement on its Web site. Among them, US$160.2 billion in assets were held by the OBUs of 37 Taiwanese banks, and US$26.807 billion in assets were held by the OBUs of 25 foreign banks doing business in Taiwan, the central bank said, without elaborating on the decrease in the OBUs’ total assets. These OBUs’ lending made up about 45.2 percent of their total assets with interbank lending and deposits representing 17.8 percent. Securities investments accounted for an additional 15.8 percent, the central bank said.
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
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