Top Continental Holdings Corp (CHC, 欣陸控股) officials yesterday pledged that the company would emerge stronger from overseas investment losses last year that saw the group’s profitability plummet 95 percent from its 2018 earnings.
Profitability last year was NT$97 million (US$3.23 million), or earnings per share (EPS) of NT$0.12, compared with NT$1.94 billion and EPS of NT$2.36 the previous year.
As of this year, losses linked to projects in India and overseas investments would no longer impact the group’s civil engineering subsidiary, Continental Engineering Corp (CEC, 大陸工程), CHC chief executive Cindy Chang (張方欣) told a media briefing in Taipei ahead of the group’s annual shareholders’ meeting on Friday next week.
The conglomerate also owns Continental Development Corp (CDC, 大陸建設) and HDEC Corp (欣達環工), which specializes in wastewater treatment.
ENGINEERING PLANS
CEC chief executive officer Simon Buttery said that the company closed last year with a NT$70 billion backlog, equivalent to three-and-a-half years of turnover, and in line with its strategic business growth plan through 2025.
A sizeable proportion of the backlog came from new contracts, including the Taoyuan MRT Project and Nangang Depot Public Housing project, Buttery said.
He is confident Taiwan would make further investment in civil infrastructure, he added.
NEW OPPORTUNITIES
CEC would explore civil opportunities related to conventional and renewable energy, as well as business opportunities from building demand in the residential and hospitality sectors, he said.
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted supply of construction materials and workers for projects in Hong Kong, but the situation might stabilize in the second half of the year, Buttery said.
To mitigate the global shortage of construction manpower, CEC is looking at new technologies to reduce its dependence on human labor, he said.
CDC chairman Christopher Chang (張良吉) said the group’s development arm sold NT$5.9 billion of properties in Taiwan last year, a 28 percent increase from 2018.
PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT
CDC plans to launch projects valued at NT$28 billion this year, he said.
It has sold 80 percent of an upcoming residential complex in New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店) in less than three months, despite the virus outbreak, Christopher Chang said.
A luxury home project in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山) has been 90 percent sold, he said, adding: “The results show locations matter.”
The pandemic is pushing back construction on mixed-use complexes in San Francisco and Malaysia, but construction might resume later this month, he said.
The group has proposed distributing a NT$0.5 per share cash dividend, despite last year’s lackluster earnings.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the