Taiwan’s financial and life insurance companies raised stakes in commercial properties by NT$25.6 billion (US$923.92 million) in the first eight months of this year, aiming to generate rental incomes and long-term benefits from urban renewal, Sinyi Global Management Co (信義全球資產) said yesterday.
The volume is the second-highest in the past five years and already surpassed the full-year levels of 2018 and 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, it said.
“The figures suggest strong real-estate investment demand from local financial institutes and life insurers — companies that generally have excessive liquidity,” Sinyi Global general manager James Ko (柯宏安) said in a report.
That would lend support to the nation’s commercial property market for the rest of this year, when the supply of land and superficies rights are expected to decline, Ko added.
Financial institutes and life insurers in the past few years competed for land and superficies rights in prime locations, aiming to develop mixed-use complexes that can generate regular rental incomes.
A lack of investment options directed funds to office buildings and industrial properties, Ko said.
Taipei accounted for NT$15.6 billion, or 60 percent, of overall deals in the first eight month, led by the purchase of China Development Financial Holding Corp’s (中華開發金控) headquarters by Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽) for NT$9.29 billion, the report said.
Shin Kong Life is eyeing urban renewal potential for the old building and meanwhile uses it as office space, Ko said.
Mercuries Life Insurance Co (三商美邦人壽) acquired a new office building constructed by Huaku Development Co (華固建設) in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖) for NT$3.4 billion that is set to become the life insurer’s new headquarters, it said.
The asset management arm of CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) bought Kuo Rui Group’s (國瑞集團) headquarters in Neihu for NT$2.21 billion.
Besides Taipei, Hsinchu city and county have won growing attention from property investment funds, thanks to improving infrastructure and Taiwan’s leadership position in the global technology industry. The shifts have significantly boosted property value and rent rates in the area.
China Life Insurance Co (中國人壽) bought partial floors of an office building in the city for NT$8 billion, and Shin Kong Life acquired another office building, Riant Plaza (萊恩廣場), for NT$5.64 billion, it said.
Ko said he expects Hsinchu to further gain popularity as a real-estate investment location.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to