United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 3 contract chipmaker, yesterday said that its board of directors has approved a proposal to distribute a cash dividend of NT$0.58 per share.
That was lower than the NT$0.7 per share distributed last year, but UMC maintained a 100 percent payout ratio based on its earnings per share of NT$0.58, or NT$7.07 billion (US$229.16 million), for last year.
This year’s cash dividend distribution implied a 4.96 percent dividend yield based on the stock’s closing price of NT$11.7 yesterday.
“The company’s policy is to sustain a high payout ratio,” UMC chief financial officer Liu Chi-tung (劉啟東) said by telephone.
The chipmaker does not plan to follow in the footsteps of bigger rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which has decided to pay cash dividends on a quarterly basis.
TSMC is the first local listed company to divide payment over the year.
UMC plans to continue to pay the cash dividend once per year, Liu said, adding that the board members did not discuss any new arrangements.
Locally listed companies usually pay a cash dividend once per year in August or later.
However, they have now been given greater flexibility to also arrange payments either quarterly or twice per year, following a revision to regulations that was passed in July last year.
Separately yesterday, solar wafer maker Green Energy Technology Inc (綠能科技) said that a majority of its creditors have agreed to a proposed debt restructuring scheme.
Green Energy’s seven creditors, led by King’s Town Bank (京城銀行), have reached a preliminary agreement to give a one-year grace period for the company’s short-term loans that ends on Dec. 31, the firm said in a statement.
The solar wafer maker said that it would be allowed to pay interest at an annual rate of 0.94 percent on mid-to-long-term loans, while also deferring the principal payment in accordance with improvement in the company’s financial status.
As of the end of last year, Green Energy had NT$2.27 billion in short-term debt on its books and NT$1.85 billion in long-term debt.
Green Energy yesterday posted NT$245 million in revenue for last month, down 7.6 percent from NT$266 million in January and a decline of 69.5 percent from NT$857.53 million in same period last year.
Prices for high-end wafers are to stabilize this month, the company said.
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said second-quarter revenue is expected to surpass the first quarter, which rose 30 percent year-on-year to NT$118.92 billion (US$3.71 billion). Revenue this quarter is likely to grow, as US clients have front-loaded orders ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Taiwanese goods, Delta chairman Ping Cheng (鄭平) said at an earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the 90-day pause in tariff implementation Trump announced on April 9. While situations in the third and fourth quarters remain unclear, “We will not halt our long-term deployments and do not plan to
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar