EQUITIES
Foreigners sell more shares
Foreign investors last week sold a net NT$1.9 billion (US$63.7 million) of local shares after selling a net NT$40.07 billion a week earlier, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said in a statement yesterday. As of Friday, foreign investors had sold NT$954.98 billion of local shares since the beginning of the year, the exchange said. The top three shares sold by foreign investors last week were Innolux Corp (群創光電), China Steel Corp (中鋼) and China Development Financial Holding Corp (中華開發金控), while the top three shares bought by foreign investors were EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空), AUO Corp (友達光電) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), the exchange said. As of Friday, the market capitalization of shares held by foreign investors was NT$18.07 trillion, or 40.11 percent of total market capitalization, it said.
ELECTRONICS
Ennoconn revenue soars
Ennoconn Corp (樺漢科技), an industrial computer subsidiary of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), yesterday said its revenue for last month, the second quarter and the first six months of the year all were the highest levels for the same period in the company’s history. Consolidated revenue was NT$10.39 billion last month, up 23.3 percent month-on-month and 22.9 percent year-on-year, Ennoconn said in a statement. Second-quarter revenue grew 11.4 percent quarter-on-quarter and 18.3 percent year-on-year to NT$26.98 billion, driven by the company’s design and systems integration segments, it said. Coupled with stable growth in its brand business, revenue in the first half of the year rose 19.1 percent year-on-year to NT$51.2 billion, the company said, adding that it is optimistic about its outlook for the second half.
BANKING
Multilingual ATM target set
The Financial Supervisory Commission has set a target for local banks to raise the number of multilingual ATMs to account for 50 percent of their total machines by the end of this year. The commission has also demanded that banks increase their number of bilingual branches in the domestic market, it said on Thursday last week. While the commission did not set a specific target on the number of bilingual branches, it expects the number to grow from 479 currently, it said. The anticipated increases in the number of multilingual ATMs and bilingual branches are part of the commission’s efforts to promote more inclusive financial services, which also include the setup of digital savings accounts and the use of mobile payments, it added.
PROPERTY
Pan told to go bankrupt
Distressed property tycoon Pan Sutong (潘蘇通) has been told by the Hong Kong High Court to go bankrupt, marking another blow to the former billionaire. The court ordered Pan to unwind his holding company, Silver Starlight Ltd, after he and the firm failed to pay creditors including China Citic Bank Corp (中信銀行) HK$8 billion (US$1 billion at the current exchange rate) that was due in 2019, a court filing showed on Friday. A representative for Pan yesterday said that he is appealing the order. Once among Asia’s wealthiest people, Pan fell from grace after shares of Goldin Financial Holdings Ltd (高銀金融) plunged amid a property collapse, erasing most of his US$27 billion fortune. Last month, he resigned as chairman and executive director of Goldin Financial after the sale of the firm’s flagship skyscraper collapsed.
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
HSBC Holdings PLC is deepening its commitment to Taiwan as the economy emerges as one of the bank’s fastest-growing markets globally, driven by an artificial intelligence (AI) investment boom, expanding cross-border trade, and rising wealth creation. “The advantage that Taiwan has is a growth story linked to the semiconductor and broader AI industries, strong underlying corporate performance, and wealth creation,” said Surendra Rosha, HSBC’s co-chief executive for Asia and the Middle East, in an exclusive interview with the Taipei Times on June 2, during this year’s HSBC Taiwan Conference. That combination has helped HSBC cement its position as the most profitable international
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
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
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