Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信) yesterday said it is to merge with Asia Pacific Telecom Co (亞太電信) in a share swap worth about NT$24.7 billion (US$881.48 million), which would be the latest consolidation in Taiwan’s telecom industry.
Based on the statement, each share of Asia Pacific Telecom would be swapped for 0.093 Far EasTone shares.
The deal is expected to be completed on Sept. 30.
Photo: Lisa Wang, Taipei Times
The announcement follows a plan by Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大) to acquire smaller peer Taiwan Star Telecom Corp (台灣之星) for NT$28.2 billion.
Originally, Far EasTone had planned to increase its stake in Asia Pacific to 23.8 percent this year based on an agreement the two firms signed two years ago.
Far EasTone has an 11.58 percent stake in Asia Pacific.
“However, after our peers announced their merger plan in December last year, we thought our strategy should evolve with the changes in the market and the industry landscape,” Far EasTone president Chee Ching (井琪) told a news conference in Taipei.
Far EasTone expects to see synergy during the first year after the merger, as it would expand its 5G bandwidth and customer base.
Far EasTone would become the nation’s No. 2 telecom operator after the merger, with 9.2 million subscribers, surpassing Taiwan Mobile and Taiwan Star’s combined 9.12 million.
Far EasTone expects the health of the nation’s telecom industry to improve with the deals, as pricing competition would diminish with the reduction of operators to three from five, Ching said.
Hopefully with fewer players, bandwidth auctions would be less competitive, leading to reasonable bidding, she said.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), which has a 36 percent stake in Asia Pacific, would hold 4 percent of Far EasTone after the transaction is completed.
CHIP RACE: Three years of overbroad export controls drove foreign competitors to pursue their own AI chips, and ‘cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,’ Nvidia said China has figured out the US strategy for allowing it to buy Nvidia Corp’s H200s and is rejecting the artificial intelligence (AI) chip in favor of domestically developed semiconductors, White House AI adviser David Sacks said, citing news reports. US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would allow shipments of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, part of an administration effort backed by Sacks to challenge Chinese tech champions such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) by bringing US competition to their home market. On Friday, Sacks signaled that he was uncertain about whether that approach would work. “They’re rejecting our chips,” Sacks
NATIONAL SECURITY: Intel’s testing of ACM tools despite US government control ‘highlights egregious gaps in US technology protection policies,’ a former official said Chipmaker Intel Corp has tested chipmaking tools this year from a toolmaker with deep roots in China and two overseas units that were targeted by US sanctions, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Intel, which fended off calls for its CEO’s resignation from US President Donald Trump in August over his alleged ties to China, got the tools from ACM Research Inc, a Fremont, California-based producer of chipmaking equipment. Two of ACM’s units, based in Shanghai and South Korea, were among a number of firms barred last year from receiving US technology over claims they have
It is challenging to build infrastructure in much of Europe. Constrained budgets and polarized politics tend to undermine long-term projects, forcing officials to react to emergencies rather than plan for the future. Not in Austria. Today, the country is to officially open its Koralmbahn tunnel, the 5.9 billion euro (US$6.9 billion) centerpiece of a groundbreaking new railway that will eventually run from Poland’s Baltic coast to the Adriatic Sea, transforming travel within Austria and positioning the Alpine nation at the forefront of logistics in Europe. “It is Austria’s biggest socio-economic experiment in over a century,” said Eric Kirschner, an economist at Graz-based Joanneum
OPTION: Uber said it could provide higher pay for batch trips, if incentives for batching is not removed entirely, as the latter would force it to pass on the costs to consumers Uber Technologies Inc yesterday warned that proposed restrictions on batching orders and minimum wages could prompt a NT$20 delivery fee increase in Taiwan, as lower efficiency would drive up costs. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi made the remarks yesterday during his visit to Taiwan. He is on a multileg trip to the region, which includes stops in South Korea and Japan. His visit coincided the release last month of the Ministry of Labor’s draft bill on the delivery sector, which aims to safeguard delivery workers’ rights and improve their welfare. The ministry set the minimum pay for local food delivery drivers at
RSS