Evergreen International Corp (長榮國際), a major shareholder of EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空), yesterday denied that it had invested in Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空), although it said that Evergreen chairman Cheng Shen-chih (鄭深池) has personal shares in the start-up airline.
Evergreen International did not disclose how much Cheng has invested in Starlux, saying that it is a personal matter.
Chang Kuo-ming (張國明) and Chang Kuo-cheng (張國政) — brothers of Chang Kuo-wei (張國煒), who founded Starlux and heads the airline — were reported by Chinese-language media to have invested in Starlux, but its spokesperson, Nieh Kuo-wei (聶國維) did not verify the reports, he told the Taipei Times.
Photo: Wang Yi-hung, Taipei Times
“We are talking with all new shareholders, and it would be more appropriate to disclose their identity after the injection is carried out. No matter who they are, we welcome them and appreciate their support of Starlux,” Nieh said.
Starlux last month disclosed that the airline would conduct a capital injection of NT$3.3 billion (US$109.29 million) by issuing 275 million new shares, with each share priced at NT$12, regulatory filing showed.
The injection, the second for Starlux this year, is slated to be completed at the end of this month, while the majority of the proceeds, or NT$3.1 billion, would be used for business operation, with the remaining to repay debts, the filing showed.
As Cheng has the support of Chang Kuo-ming and Chang Kuo-cheng, Cheng’s investment in Starlux is seen by some as an alliance among the three, after Evergreen International in April appointed Chang Kuo-wei as the new chairman of Uni Airways Co (立榮航空).
Chang Kuo-wei holds a 91.83 percent stake in Starlux, and the injections would not affect his dominance in the airline, company data showed.
Starlux reported a net loss of NT$2.66 billion for the first half of this year, widening from a net loss of NT$1.36 billion a year earlier. Losses per share reached NT$2.03, compared with losses per share of NT$1.24 a year earlier, the airline said.
The airline’s cumulative revenue totaled NT$632 million in the first six months, up 80 percent from a year earlier, although its operational costs expanded 86 percent year-on-year to NT$2.17 billion, it said.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by