The chairman of the world’s largest contract chipmaker has become a billionaire thanks to expected demand for Apple Inc’s new iPhone.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) shares have surged 25 percent in the past year, lifting TSMC founder and chairman Morris Chang’s (張忠謀) personal fortune to US$1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Chang, 86, owns 0.5 percent of the business directly and through his family, according to a May filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The climbing valuation is being fueled by optimism about a revenue boost from the upcoming iPhone release, as well as long-term expectations that cars, high-performance computing and the Internet of Things will be new growth drivers for its processors, according to Randy Abrams, a Taipei-based equity analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG.
TSMC spokeswoman Elizabeth Sun (孫又文) declined to comment on Chang’s net worth.
TSMC has a market cap of almost US$180 billion, making it the most valuable company on the Taiwanese stock exchange. Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海), the listed flagship of iPhone assembler Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), is the second-most valuable company on the exchange has risen 56 percent in the past year to US$67.6 billion.
The Taiwan Taiex Electronics Index, a measure of the market’s technology stocks, is up 22 percent in the same period.
Chang founded TSMC in 1987 with backing from the Taiwanese government, which remains the company’s largest shareholder through the National Development Fund’s 6.4 percent stake.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University graduate spent the majority of his career working for Texas Instruments Inc. He established TSMC when he was in his mid-50 and became the first to build a semiconductor factory that made chips based on the designs of its customers.
Chang stepped down as chief executive officer in 2005 only to return when TSMC’s business stagnated, serving another stint as CEO between 2009 and 2013.
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Netherlands-based semiconductor equipment supplier ASML Holding NV yesterday said that it is planning to hire an additional 1,000 people in Taiwan this year in response to growing demand from clients. ASML had previously planned to recruit 600 people this year, but that the plan has been adjusted upward, ASML vice president and ASML Taiwan general manager Grace Wang (汪佳慧) told reporters. ASML has a workforce of more than 4,500 in Taiwan, accounting for about 10 percent of its global total, Wang said. This year’s recruitment campaign would focus on adding people in the customer support, manufacturing and supply chain domains to assist ASML
Nvidia Corp yesterday announced that CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) would attend an employee meeting in Taipei tomorrow to celebrate the launch of the company’s Taiwan headquarters project. Huang would attend a gathering at the site of Nvidia’s planned headquarters in Beitou Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區), the company said in a statement. After arriving in Taiwan on Saturday last week, Huang told reporters that he plans to meet with Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), and would attend the groundbreaking ceremony for Nvidia’s Taiwan headquarters tomorrow. Nvidia has not yet applied
RSS