Huawei Technologies Co (華為) plans to sell its undersea telecom cable business, a buyer’s filing showed yesterday, in its first major asset sale since the US ratcheted up accusations of the Chinese firm being a vehicle for espionage.
Hengtong Optic-Electric Co (亨通光電), an optical telecommunication network products company based in Jiangsu Province, said in the filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange that it on Friday signed a letter of intent with Huawei Technologies subsidiary Huawei Tech Investment Co (華為技術投資) to buy its 51 percent stake in Huawei Marine Systems Co (華為海洋網絡) via cash and share issuance.
The filing did not disclose a price.
Huawei Technologies declined to provide comment when contacted by reporters.
The potential sale comes as Huawei’s main business of making and selling telecom network equipment and smartphones is under intense global scrutiny as the US works to persuade its allies that Huawei’s products pose a security risk.
Huawei has said it would not cooperate with any Chinese state request to access its systems for intelligence purposes.
Even so, the US Department of Commerce last month imposed a trade ban that threatens to significantly disrupt its supply chain.
In March, the Wall Street Journal cited US security officials as saying that the suspected security risk extended to undersea cables built by Huawei Marine.
Undersea cables are the backbone of global Internet traffic. Huawei has been gaining share in the market dominated by US firm SubCom LLC, Japan’s NEC Corp and Europe’s Alcatel-Lucent SA, since Huawei Marine was established in 2008 as a joint venture with the UK’s Global Marine Group.
Huawei Marine has participated in 90 projects worldwide and built 50,361km of cables, its Web site showed, including a 6,000km cable connecting Africa and South America for the first time, completed in September last year.
It booked net profit of 115 million yuan (US$16.66 million) for last year on revenue of 394 million yuan, according to Huawei Technologies’ annual report.
The annual report also showed that Huawei Technologies gained majority voting rights on Huawei Marine’s board in August last year, with Global Marine retaining a 49 percent non-controlling interest.
According to exchange filings, Hengtong Optic-Electric’s largest shareholder is privately owned Hengtong Group (亨通集團) with a 15.66 percent stake.
Hengtong Group’s founder and owner Cui Genliang (崔根良) is the second-largest shareholder with 14.95 percent.
Hengtong Group on its Web site said it is China’s biggest solutions provider in fiber-optic networks and smart electricity grids, with more than 70 subsidiaries at home and abroad, including Indonesia-listed cable maker PT Voksel Electric Tbk.
Hengtong Optic-Electric booked net profit of 2.5 billion yuan for last year on revenue of 33.9 billion yuan, according to its annual report.
It has delivered more than 10,000km of undersea cables, including for projects in Papua New Guinea, Chile, Bolivia and Mexico, the annual report showed.
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) suffered its biggest stock decline in more than a month after the company unveiled new artificial intelligence (AI) chips, but did not provide hoped-for information on customers or financial performance. The stock slid 4 percent to US$164.18 on Thursday, the biggest single-day drop since Sept. 3. Shares of the company remain up 11 percent this year. AMD has emerged as the biggest contender to Nvidia Corp in the lucrative market of AI processors. The company’s latest chips would exceed some capabilities of its rival, AMD chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) said at an event hosted by
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
TECH JUGGERNAUT: TSMC shares have more than doubled since ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022, as demand for cutting-edge artificial intelligence chips remains high Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday posted a better-than-expected 39 percent rise in quarterly revenue, assuaging concerns that artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending is beginning to taper off. The main chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported third-quarter sales of NT$759.69 billion (US$23.6 billion), compared with the average analyst projection of NT$748 billion. For last month alone, TSMC reported revenue jumped 39.6 percent year-on-year to NT$251.87 billion. Taiwan’s largest company is to disclose its full third-quarter earnings on Thursday next week and update its outlook. Hsinchu-based TSMC produces the cutting-edge chips needed to train AI. The company now makes more
RSS