GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓) is close to clearing an important regulatory hurdle in its US$5.3 billion acquisition of German silicon wafer manufacturer Siltronic AG, people familiar with the matter said.
The Chinese State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) has said that it is largely comfortable with the antitrust remedies proposed by the companies and could make a formal decision shortly, the people said, asking not to be identified as they were discussing confidential information.
The deal still requires approval from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, and those discussions are ongoing, the people said.
Photo: CNA
GlobalWafers shares were up as much as 7.6 percent in Taipei yesterday, while Siltronic rose 1.1 percent in Frankfurt on Tuesday, giving it a market value of about US$4.7 billion.
“We are still waiting for the final approval in China, but all questions have been answered,” GlobalWafers chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said in an interview with German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published on Tuesday.
The German government might be concerned that GlobalWafers is headquartered in Taiwan, rather than in Europe, she added.
A representative for Siltronic declined to comment, while a SAMR spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment outside regular business hours.
A representative for the German economy ministry had no immediate comment.
GlobalWafers and Siltronic announced their tie-up in December 2020.
The companies said in October last year that they were in protracted discussions over regulatory clearances in China and Germany.
The takeover would be GlobalWafers’ largest ever and also one of the chip industry’s biggest in the past few years.
Competition in the market for semiconductors is heating up as companies that were once customers such as Apple Inc, are designing their own chips and established players such as Nvidia Corp branch out into new areas.
Headquartered in Munich, Siltronic is a leading maker of silicon wafers used in products such as smartphones, computers, navigation and digital displays.
It has production sites and offices in Germany, the US and other advanced manufacturing countries.
Nomura Holdings Inc advised GlobalWafers on the deal, while Credit Suisse Group AG worked with Siltronic.
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said it would work with US chipmaker Intel Corp to jointly develop and deploy next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and intelligent computing platforms in a move to capture booming demand for AI computing systems. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康), said in a statement that the partnership would combine its global manufacturing scale, system integration expertise and AI data center deployment capabilities with Intel’s strengths in processor architecture, silicon technologies and software ecosystem. The companies said they plan to work on equipment used in AI data centers, including server racks powered by
RSS