UTAC Holdings Ltd, the Singapore-based chip testing firm backed by Affinity Equity Partners Ltd and TPG Capital LLP, is exploring options for a sale of its business after completing a bond restructuring, people with knowledge of the matter said.
The company met potential advisers over the past few weeks to discuss options that could include an initial public offering or sale, the people said.
Its owners could seek a valuation of about US$1 billion, including debt from any exit, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private.
Global A&T Electronics Ltd, which controlled most of UTAC’s operations, filed for bankruptcy in the US in December last year with a plan to quickly turn itself around.
It said the debt load taken on from its buyout a decade ago had prevented the company from growing its business.
UTAC completed a capital restructuring in January, cutting its funded debt from about US$1.1 billion to US$665 million.
Affinity Equity Partners and TPG bought UTAC in a S$2.2 billion (US$1.67 billion at the current exchange rate) leveraged buyout in 2007.
UTAC has production facilities in Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, China, Indonesia and Malaysia, according to its Web site.
UTAC’s private equity owners have made several previous attempts at exiting their investments in the company.
They had pursued a Singapore initial public offering in 2011, people with knowledge of the matter said at the time.
UTAC later filed for a US share sale in 2015, before withdrawing its registration the next year, citing unfavorable market conditions.
Representatives for UTAC, Affinity Managing Partner and TPG declined to comment.
UTAC in February said its net loss for last year narrowed to US$81.4 million, compared with US$95.1 million a year earlier.
CEO John Nelson in January said UTAC is in talks about acquisitions with at least five industry peers as it seeks to pick up factories in Southeast Asia.
Since the 2007 buyout, UTAC has bought three Panasonic Corp plants in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia to expand into the automotive and industrial end markets, according to its Web site.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
Taiwan is attracting a growing number of foreign jobseekers as companies increasingly recruit overseas talent to ease labor shortages and expand global reach, recruitment platform 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said yesterday. More than 40,000 foreign nationals searched for jobs in Taiwan through the platform last year, a 28 percent increase from a year earlier, the company said. Malaysians accounted for the largest share of overseas jobseekers at 12.2 percent, followed by Indonesians at 11.9 percent and Vietnamese at 10.8 percent. Indonesian applicants surged more than 50 percent year-on-year, while Vietnamese jobseekers rose by more than 30 percent. Applicants from the
RSS