CSBC Corp, Taiwan (台灣國際造船) shareholders at a extraordinary general meeting on Thursday approved the company’s plans to reduce its capitalization, aiming to offset accumulated losses.
The Kaohsiung-based shipbuilder is to cut its paid-in capital by 57.91 percent from NT$7.44 billion to NT$3.13 billion (US$248.3 million to US$104.4 million).
At the end of the last quarter of this year, the company had accumulated net losses of NT$4.81 billion, translating to a loss per share of NT$6.45.
Apart from a persisting downturn in the global cargo shipping sector that has driven down demand for new vessels, the company’s earnings this year have been affected by a strengthening New Taiwan dollar against the US dollar and rising material costs, CSBC said, adding that the company’s margins have also been narrowing as existing projects lag behind schedule.
To pave the way for the company’s diversification, shareholders also voted to remove a rule that has limited investments in non-shipbuilding and maintenance to less than 10 percent of its paid-in capital, the company said.
CSBC has said it is preparing to tap into the offshore wind farm market to reduce its reliance on shipbuilding.
Shareholders also approved plans to issue no more than 200 million new shares through a private placement to raise fresh funds.
The new shares would likely be purchased by government affiliates, such as Yao Hua Glass Co (耀華玻璃) and Taiwania Investment and Management Co Ltd (台杉投資管理), the company said.
In the July-to-September period, CSBC reported a net loss of NT$2.14 billion, marking its sixth consecutive quarter in the red.
Meanwhile, the number of shipbuilders across the globe has tumbled from 934 in 2009 to 358 at the end of July this year, of which an estimated 163 have no further orders, CSBC has said.
Looking ahead, the company said that earnings are expected to improve along with a recovery in the global cargo shipping sector.
CSBC said that the Baltic Dry Index — a gauge of freight rates for transported cargo such as coal, grain and iron ore — has recently risen above the 1,500-point benchmark to reach a new high for the past four years, although the index dropped this week as the market fell into consolidation mode.
In particular, the Asia Pacific region would see rapid growth as fleets in the region speed up their adoption of new vessels, the company said.
CSBC is also anticipating up to NT$500 billion in sales opportunities from upcoming procurements by the navy and coast guard that are expected to materialize next year, the company said.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
POWER BUILDUP: Powered by Nvidia’s B200 Blackwell chips, the data center would support MediaTek’s computing power demand and business growth, the company said Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center with a maximum capacity of 45 megawatts to meet its rising demand for computing power required to develop new advanced chips for AI applications. The company has completed the first-phase computing power buildup at the data center in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), providing 15 megawatts of capacity to support its research and development (R&D) capabilities, despite an industrywide shortage of key components, MediaTek said. Supply constraints have plagued a wide range of key components, including memory chips, solid-state drives, power supply units and central
IMAGE SENSORS: The Japanese company would be the controlling shareholder of the venture, with development and production lines to be set up in Kumamoto Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corp to create a joint venture to develop and produce next-generation images sensors. The partnership seeks to explore and address emerging opportunities in physical artificial intelligence (AI) applications, such as automotive and robotics, paving the way for innovations and expanded technological advancements, TSMC said in a statement. Sony would be the majority and controlling shareholder of the joint venture, the statement said, adding that the company would set up development and production lines in its newly constructed fab in Kumamoto Prefecture’s
RSS