MACHINERY
Hitachi seeks offer extension
Japan’s Hitachi Group yesterday said that it is seeking to extend today’s deadline for its tender offer period to acquire elevator supplier Yungtay Engineering Co (永大) to April 22. More time is required, as the offer has yet to be cleared by the Investment Commission and the Fair Trade Commission, the company said. Hitachi said that it has not received reports of any competing bidders and, as the sole buyer in the deal, it intends to wholly own the Taiwanese company. An extraordinary meeting of the board of directors would take place on April 18 to protect shareholders’ interests, Yungtay independent director Chen Shih-yang (陳世洋) said.
MANUFACTURING
Sales in FPG units decline
The four major units of Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團) yesterday reported that combined sales last month dropped 8.6 percent annually to NT$115.78 billion (US$3.75 billion). Combined sales in the first two months of the year also declined 8.8 percent annually to NT$253.9 billion. Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑) led its peers last month, with sales rising 5 percent to NT$14.82 billion. Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp (台灣化學纖維) saw sales last month dip 8.1 percent to NT$27.57 billion, while Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) saw sales decline 10.6 percent to NT$52.43 billion. Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠) had the weakest showing with sales dropping 12.7 percent to NT$20.96 billion.
AVIATION
AIDC chairman retires
Aerospace Industrial Development Corp (AIDC, 漢翔航空工業), the nation’s largest civilian and military aircraft manufacturer, yesterday announced that chairman Anson Liao (廖榮鑫) has tendered his resignation and would retire. Liao is to be succeeded by Air Force Deputy Commander Lieutenant General Hu Kai-hung (胡開宏). The change did not have the support of the AIDC workers’ union, which said that a government program to build locally developed trainer jets — which was launched under Liao’s watch — could be compromised. The union urged the government, a major stakeholder, to appoint a chairman from the company’s ranks. Liao took the helm at AIDC in 2015 and assembled an alliance of local aerospace suppliers to tackle major military and foreign commercial aircraft contracts.
ENERGY
Taipower ordered to pay GE
State-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) on Tuesday said it would pay General Electric Co (GE) US$158 million in a dispute over payment for a reactor system for the mothballed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, following three years of international arbitration. Expressing regret at the International Chamber of Commerce’s ruling, which also stipulates that the payment must be made before June, Taipower said it would decide whether to appeal it. In April 2014, then-premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) announced that the two GE-built reactors at the plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) would be mothballed amid rising public concern about nuclear power following the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan on March 11, 2011. Since 2014, Taipower has stopped paying bills resulting from a contract under which GE was commissioned to build a nuclear reactor system and offer equipment and services for the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, accusing GE of failure to meet the contract requirements. The plant was sealed in 2015.
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
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) investment project in Arizona has progressed better than expected, but it still faces challenges such as water and labor shortages, National Development Council (NDC) Minister Yeh Chun-hsien (葉俊顯) said yesterday. Speaking with reporters after visiting TSMC’s Arizona hub and attending the SelectUSA Investment Summit in Maryland last week, Yeh said TSMC’s Arizona site turned a profit of NT$16.14 billion (US$514 million) last year in its first full year of mass production. “TSMC told me it was surprised by the smooth trial run of the first fab, which has left the company optimistic about the project’s outlook,”
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