Tatung Co (大同) chairman Lu Ming-kuang (盧明光) and president Chaney Ho (何春盛) yesterday announced their resignations, adding further uncertainty at the troubled conglomerate which has undergone several changes to its management team since last year.
When he took the job late last year, 72-year-old Lu had envisioned implementing a five-year plan to turn the company around before retiring again. Yesterday, he said he was proud of what he had achieved since returning to the company.
“I’ve not done wrong by the largest shareholder, the employees or the investors who came in because they believed in my management team,” Lu told a news conference in Taipei.
Photo: CNA
Lu came out of retirement to take over as chairman in December last year after his predecessor, Lin Wen-yuan (林文淵), stepped down from the position after 50 days in office amid a disagreement with major shareholder Shanyuan Group (三圓建設) chairman Wang Kuang-hsiang (王光祥).
Under Lu’s leadership, Tatung’s nine business units all returned to profitability, Ho said.
“We did our level best to save Tatung” said Ho, who joined the company in June. “We took a company that was going backward and turned it into a company that was making a slow forward motion.”
However, that was not enough for Wang, who yesterday thanked, praised and bowed to Lu and Ho, before escorting them out of the news conference.
It is time for Tatung to start paying a dividend again and develop its substantial real-estate assets, said Wang, who is a director of Tatung and also chairs the company’s real-estate subsidiary, Shan Chih Asset Development Co (尚志資產開發).
“Tatung shareholders are like paupers sitting in a house made of gold,” Wang said.
There are rumors that Wang is likely to take over as Tatung chairman when the company holds a board meeting on Tuesday next week.
“We will now comprehensively develop our real-estate portfolio, our renewable energy business and our electric bus,” Wang said. “Chairman Lu was hardworking and conscientious, but it’s been 20 years since Tatung paid a dividend, we will not let our investors wait another five.”
Chung Yi-wen (鍾依文), who made way for Ho in June, is expected to return as president.
“The fundamental principle of business is profitability,” Chung said.
SEMICONDUCTORS: The German laser and plasma generator company will expand its local services as its specialized offerings support Taiwan’s semiconductor industries Trumpf SE + Co KG, a global leader in supplying laser technology and plasma generators used in chip production, is expanding its investments in Taiwan in an effort to deeply integrate into the global semiconductor supply chain in the pursuit of growth. The company, headquartered in Ditzingen, Germany, has invested significantly in a newly inaugurated regional technical center for plasma generators in Taoyuan, its latest expansion in Taiwan after being engaged in various industries for more than 25 years. The center, the first of its kind Trumpf built outside Germany, aims to serve customers from Taiwan, Japan, Southeast Asia and South Korea,
Gasoline and diesel prices at domestic fuel stations are to fall NT$0.2 per liter this week, down for a second consecutive week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to drop to NT$26.4, NT$27.9 and NT$29.9 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to fall to NT$24.8 per liter at CPC stations and NT$24.6 at Formosa pumps, they said. The price adjustments came even as international crude oil prices rose last week, as traders
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which supplies advanced chips to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday reported NT$1.046 trillion (US$33.1 billion) in revenue for last quarter, driven by constantly strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips, falling in the upper end of its forecast. Based on TSMC’s financial guidance, revenue would expand about 22 percent sequentially to the range from US$32.2 billion to US$33.4 billion during the final quarter of 2024, it told investors in October last year. Last year in total, revenue jumped 31.61 percent to NT$3.81 trillion, compared with NT$2.89 trillion generated in the year before, according to
SIZE MATTERS: TSMC started phasing out 8-inch wafer production last year, while Samsung is more aggressively retiring 8-inch capacity, TrendForce said Chipmakers are expected to raise prices of 8-inch wafers by up to 20 percent this year on concern over supply constraints as major contract chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co gradually retire less advanced wafer capacity, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. It is the first significant across-the-board price hike since a global semiconductor correction in 2023, the Taipei-based market researcher said in a report. Global 8-inch wafer capacity slid 0.3 percent year-on-year last year, although 8-inch wafer prices still hovered at relatively stable levels throughout the year, TrendForce said. The downward trend is expected to continue this year,
RSS