US-based Costco Wholesale Corp on Thursday said that it had purchased the remaining 45 percent stake in Costco President Taiwan Inc (台灣好市多) for US$1.05 billion, making the local company a fully-owned unit.
“We estimate that the purchase would add about 1 to 1.5 percent to [our] earnings per share,” Costco said in a statement.
Costco President Taiwan was established as a joint venture with Kaohsiung-based President Group (大統集團), which held a 45 percent stake.
Photo: Reuters
Since the first Costco store opened in Kaohsiung in 1997, 14 outlets have been set up in Taiwan, company data showed.
PROFITABLE
Three Costco stores in Taiwan — in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖), New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和) and one in Taichung — were among the top 10 most profitable Costco outlets worldwide, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) reported.
Costco Wholesale operates 833 warehouses worldwide: 574 in the US States and Puerto Rico, 107 in Canada, 40 in Mexico, 31 in Japan, 29 in the UK, 16 in South Korea, 14 in Taiwan, 13 in Australia, four in Spain, two each in France and China, and one in Iceland, it said in the statement.
Costco Wholesale also operates e-commerce sites in Taiwan, the US, Canada, the UK, Mexico, South Korea, Japan and Australia, it added.
With PX Mart Co (全聯實業) having acquired RT-Mart International Ltd (大潤發) and Carrefour Taiwan (家樂福) reportedly seeking a local buyer, that could leave Costco as the only foreign hypermarket chain operator in the nation.
ASML Holding NV’s new advanced chip machines have a daunting price tag, said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), one of the Dutch company’s biggest clients. “The cost is very high,” TSMC senior vice president Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, referring to ASML’s latest system known as high-NA extreme ultraviolet (EUV). “I like the high-NA EUV’s capability, but I don’t like the sticker price,” Zhang said. ASML’s new chip machine can imprint semiconductors with lines that are just 8 nanometers thick — 1.7 times smaller than the previous generation. The machines cost 350 million euros (US$378 million)
EXPLOSION: A driver who was transporting waste material from the site was hit by a blunt object after an uncontrolled pressure release and thrown 6m from the truck Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said yesterday there was no damage to its facilities after an incident at its Arizona factory construction site where a waste disposal truck driver was transported to hospital. Firefighters responded to an explosion on Wednesday afternoon at the TSMC plant in Phoenix, the Arizona Republic reported, citing the local fire department. Cesar Anguiano-Guitron, 41, was transporting waste material from the project site and stopped to inspect the tank when he was made aware of a potential problem, a police report seen by Bloomberg News showed. Following an “uncontrolled pressure release,” he was hit by a blunt
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), which makes servers and laptop computers on a contract basis, yesterday said it expects artificial intelligence (AI) devices to bring explosive growth to Taiwan’s electronics industry, as AI applications are starting to run on edge devices such as AI PCs. Taiwanese electronics manufacturers such as chipmakers, component suppliers and hardware assemblers are likely to benefit from a rapid uptake of AI applications, Mike Yang (楊麒令), president of Quanta Cloud Technology Inc (雲達科技), a server manufacturing arm of Quanta, told reporters on the sidelines of a technology forum in Taipei yesterday. “I believe the growth potential is promising once
‘WORST OVER’: A large portion of Hon Hai’s non-operating loss came from Sharp’s large flat-screen business, but Young Liu said the situation is expected to improve Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler, yesterday reported annual growth of 72 percent in net profit last quarter, due to a dramatic decrease in losses from Sharp Corp’s display business. Net profit surged to NT$22 billion (US$678.7 million) last quarter, from NT$12.83 billion a year earlier, as Hon Hai booked a non-operating loss of NT$4.24 billion, an improvement from NT$20.12 billion in the first quarter of last year. A major portion of its non-operating loss came from Sharp’s large flat-screen business Sakai Display Products Corp. On a quarterly basis, Hon Hai’s net profit sank 59 percent from NT$53.15