Demand for warehouses and logistics facilities has spiked in the past few years, aided by booming online shopping and port congestion amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Colliers International Taiwan (高力國際) said yesterday.
The past three years have seen 22 major transactions of warehouses and logistics facilities valued at NT$29.94 billion (US$1.05 billion) and covering 209,100 ping (690,030m2), the size of 2.3 Daan Forest Parks in Taipei, the property broker said.
Colliers Taiwan managing director Andrew Liu (劉學龍) identified three investment approaches in warehouses and logistics facilities, namely by taking up the role of landlords, service providers and operators.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽) and Chunghwa Post Co (中華郵政) are landlords to several warehouses and logistics facilities that generate rental incomes equal to 4 percent of annual returns, Liu said.
Ally Logistic Property Co (永聯物流) offers warehousing and logistics solutions for clients in electronics and retail sectors, a business model that provides higher returns than rents, Liu said.
Meanwhile, companies such as food and beverage conglomerate Uni-President Enterprises Corp (統一企業), supermarket chain operator PX Mart Co Ltd (全聯實業) and e-commerce operator Momo.com Inc (富邦媒體) buy plots and build their own warehouses and logistics facilities to meet operational needs, Liu said, adding that their business scales are large and their pockets deep enough to warrant such a strategy.
Most warehousing deals are concentrated in Taoyuan’s Guanyin (觀音), Gueishan (龜山), Dasi (大溪) and Lujhu (蘆竹) districts; New Taipei City’s Wugu District (五股); Keelung; and Hsinchu’s Hukou Township (湖口), Collier Taiwan said.
Solid demand has pushed up industrial plot prices by 40 percent since 2018, the broker said.
Warehouses and logistics facilities are sparse in Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung, as well as Changhua County, but their numbers might increase in central and southern Taiwan in the coming years on the back of emerging industrial clusters and land scarcity in the north, Collier Taiwan said.
Industrial plots of more than 10,000 ping and near highway entrances are ideal sites for warehouses and logistics facilities, it said.
Apart from Cathay Life, Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽) and Transglobe Life Insurance Co (全球人壽) also have displayed investment interest in warehouses and logistics facilities, it said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, booked its first-ever profit from its Arizona subsidiary in the first half of this year, four years after operations began, a company financial statement showed. Wholly owned by TSMC, the Arizona unit contributed NT$4.52 billion (US$150.1 million) in net profit, compared with a loss of NT$4.34 billion a year earlier, the statement showed. The company attributed the turnaround to strong market demand and high factory utilization. The Arizona unit counts Apple Inc, Nvidia Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc among its major customers. The firm’s first fab in Arizona began high-volume production
VOTE OF CONFIDENCE: The Japanese company is adding Intel to an investment portfolio that includes artificial intelligence linchpins Nvidia Corp and TSMC Softbank Group Corp agreed to buy US$2 billion of Intel Corp stock, a surprise deal to shore up a struggling US name while boosting its own chip ambitions. The Japanese company, which is adding Intel to an investment portfolio that includes artificial intelligence (AI) linchpins Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), is to pay US$23 a share — a small discount to Intel’s last close. Shares of the US chipmaker, which would issue new stock to Softbank, surged more than 5 percent in after-hours trading. Softbank’s stock fell as much as 5.4 percent on Tuesday in Tokyo, its
The prices of gasoline and diesel at domestic fuel stations are to rise NT$0.1 and NT$0.4 per liter this week respectively, after international crude oil prices rose last 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 rise to NT$27.3, NT$28.8 and NT$30.8 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to rise to NT$26.2 per liter at CPC stations and NT$26 at Formosa pumps, they said. The announcements came after international crude oil prices
SETBACK: Apple’s India iPhone push has been disrupted after Foxconn recalled hundreds of Chinese engineers, amid Beijing’s attempts to curb tech transfers Apple Inc assembly partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has recalled about 300 Chinese engineers from a factory in India, the latest setback for the iPhone maker’s push to rapidly expand in the country. The extraction of Chinese workers from the factory of Yuzhan Technology (India) Private Ltd, a Hon Hai component unit, in southern Tamil Nadu state, is the second such move in a few months. The company has started flying in Taiwanese engineers to replace staff leaving, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named, as the