Taiwan Asset Management Co (TAMC, 台灣金聯資產管理), the nation’s largest bad-loan operator, expects revenue to stay flat this year from last year as the number of bad loans decline, limiting growth, top officials said yesterday.
“The company’s financial performance is likely to flatten this year amid the shrinking pool of bad loans,” acting chairman S.M. Lin (林盛茂) told a news conference.
Revenue was NT$2 billion (US$66.53 million) last year, with rental income accounting for 20 percent, or NT$400 million, Lin said.
That explains why the firm is to sell only 60 residential and commercial properties as well as plots of land this year compared with a larger batch of 100 in the previous six years, Lin said.
The annual sales campaign, which starts today and is to last through May 22, offers 44 residential properties, 10 commercial offices, five storefronts and one plot of land priced from NT$500,000, TAMC executive vice president Kuo Wen-jin (郭文進) said.
The firm declined to comment on the size of discounts due to the lack of a reliable benchmark these days, Kuo said, adding that some sellers have made drastic concessions to facilitate deals, while others show little flexibility.
Studio apartments of 19.3 ping and 20.55 ping (63.8m2 and 67.9m2), including parking spaces, on Taipei’s Linsen N Road have asking prices of NT$6.26 million, or NT$324,352 per ping, and NT$6.66 million, Lin said.
“Such rates are rare, if not utterly impossible, for apartments in Taipei,” Lin said.
TAMC has suspended plans to turn a mixed-use building into a hotel in downtown Taichung as the hospitality industry grows increasingly competitive in central Taiwan amid declining numbers of Chinese tourists, Lin said.
“We need more time to re-evaluate what is best for the asset, which has 17,000 ping of floor space,” senior vice president Tim Liu (劉育紘) said.
The company would prefer a tenant that is a banquet operator, as that business generates higher profit margins and promises long-term regular rental income, Liu said.
Three experts in the high technology industry have said that US President Donald Trump’s pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductors is part of an effort to force Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to the negotiating table. In a speech to Republicans on Jan. 27, Trump said he intends to impose tariffs on Taiwan to bring chip production to the US. “The incentive is going to be they’re not going to want to pay a 25, 50 or even a 100 percent tax,” he said. Darson Chiu (邱達生), an economics professor at Taichung-based Tunghai University and director-general of
‘LEGACY CHIPS’: Chinese companies have dramatically increased mature chip production capacity, but the West’s drive for secure supply chains offers a lifeline for Taiwan When Powerchip Technology Corp (力晶科技) entered a deal with the eastern Chinese city of Hefei in 2015 to set up a new chip foundry, it hoped the move would help provide better access to the promising Chinese market. However, nine years later, that Chinese foundry, Nexchip Semiconductor Corp (合晶集成), has become one of its biggest rivals in the legacy chip space, leveraging steep discounts after Beijing’s localization call forced Powerchip to give up the once-lucrative business making integrated circuits for Chinese flat panels. Nexchip is among Chinese foundries quickly winning market share in the crucial US$56.3 billion industry of so-called legacy
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday held its first board of directors meeting in the US, at which it did not unveil any new US investments despite mounting tariff threats from US President Donald Trump. Trump has threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs on Taiwan-made chips, prompting market speculation that TSMC might consider boosting its chip capacity in the US or ramping up production of advanced chips such as those using a 2-nanometer technology process at its Arizona fabs ahead of schedule. Speculation also swirled that the chipmaker might consider building its own advanced packaging capacity in the US as part
A move by US President Donald Trump to slap a 25 percent tariff on all steel imports is expected to place Taiwan-made steel, which already has a 25 percent tariff, on an equal footing, the Taiwan Steel & Iron Industries Association said yesterday. Speaking with CNA, association chairman Hwang Chien-chih (黃建智) said such an equal footing is expected to boost Taiwan’s competitive edge against other countries in the US market, describing the tariffs as "positive" for Taiwanese steel exporters. On Monday, Trump signed two executive orders imposing the new metal tariffs on imported steel and aluminum with no exceptions and exemptions, effective