Asia Pacific Telecom Co (APT, 亞太電信), a unit of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), yesterday said that shareholders have approved plans for a 34 percent capital reduction and a 1.5 billion new share offering to strengthen its financial structure and finance its bid for 5G spectrum.
The company reported accumulated losses of NT$22.15 billion (US$713 million) as of June 30, more than half of its total share capital of NT$42.98 billion, according to the shareholders’ meeting brochure.
APT shareholders voted “yes” to the proposal to cancel NT$14.81 billion of shares as part of the company’s broader efforts to manage losses.
The company attributed the losses to cutthroat price competition for 4G services and NT$103.36 billion in 3G telecom equipment impairment charges.
“Price competition intensified after the commercial launch of 4G, causing a setback in revenue and profit for the whole industry,” APT said in the brochure.
The heated competition also dashed APT’s hope to turn a profit when its customer base grew to 2 million this year, APT chairman Lu Fang-ming (呂芳銘) told shareholders.
Despite the losses, Lu reiterated the telecom’s determination to vie for a 5G spectrum during the first round of the auction in December.
APT and its local peers all have a chance to offer 5G services as they will be allowed to share spectrum — unlike for 3G and 4G — because of limited 5G bandwidth.
As of yesterday, all five local telecom operators in Taiwan had submitted their applications to participate in the auction before the deadline today.
APT is scheduled to set a price for the new share offering, which is to be made via a private placement, early next month, the company said.
The company’s top three shareholders — Hon Hai, Taiwan Railways Administration and Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大) — are among the potential subscribers for the new shares.
APT declined to reveal if any company has shown an interest to inject capital into the firm.
Hon Hai is its biggest shareholder at 19.63 percent.
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
MORE WEIGHT: The national weighting was raised in one index while holding steady in two others, while several companies rose or fell in prominence MSCI Inc, a global index provider, has raised Taiwan’s weighting in one of its major indices and left the country’s weighting unchanged in two other indices after a regular index review. In a statement released on Thursday, MSCI said it has upgraded Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country World Index by 0.02 percentage points to 2.25 percent, while maintaining the weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the most closely watched by foreign institutional investors, at 20.46 percent. Additionally, the index provider has left Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country Asia ex-Japan Index unchanged at 23.15 percent. The latest index adjustments are to
RSS