Restaurant chain operator Wowprime Corp (王品), which owns the Wang Steak (王品台塑牛排), Tasty (西堤) and Tokiya (陶板屋) brands, on Monday announced that it would give year-end bonuses to its employees equivalent to one-and-a-half months of salary as the local food and beverage industry recovers from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Wowprime chairman Chen Cheng-hui (陳正輝) made the announcement in a late-night livestream event that the company organized for its 9,300 employees in Taiwan.
Wowprime’s year-end bonuses this year would be the highest since the company debuted on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 2012, and would also surpass the local lodging and food and beverage industry’s average bonus of 0.85 months of salary.
Photo courtesy of Wowprime Corp
The company is expected to pay more than NT$200 million (US$6.51 million) in employee bonuses.
Wowprime also announced that it would spend NT$20 million on five year-end banquets for its employees, plus an incentive tour later this month.
“As long as the company stays profitable, we will share the benefits with all of our partners,” Chen said.
The company posted third-quarter earnings per share (EPS) of NT$3.77, improving from losses per share of NT$1.45 a year earlier.
In the first nine months of this year, the restaurant chain operator posted EPS of NT$2.41, compared with NT$2.43 in losses per share a year earlier.
Revenue last month grew 14.01 percent year-on-year to NT$1.22 billion, increasing for a fifth straight month.
However, sales from China plunged 32.95 percent from a year earlier to NT$320 million due to strict COVID-19 curbs there. As a result, Wowprime’s consolidated sales last month edged down 0.62 percent from a year earlier to NT$1.54 billion.
Consolidated sales in the first 11 months of the year rose 7.95 percent to NT$16.53 billion.
With China easing its COVID-19 restrictions, Wowprime said it believed its operations there would improve.
Last month, Wowprime said it would raise its starting monthly salary for employees to NT$33,000 from next year as part of a plan to increase pay by 3 percent to 7.5 percent for employees across the group’s chains.
The domestic unit of the Chinese-owned, Dutch-headquartered chipmaker Nexperia BV will soon be able to produce semiconductors locally within China, according to two company sources. Nexperia is at the center of a global tug-of-war over critical semiconductor technology, with a Dutch court in February ordering a probe into alleged mismanagement at the company. The geopolitical tussle has disrupted supply chains, with some carmakers reportedly forced to cut production due to chip shortages. Local production would allow Nexperia’s domestic arm, Nexperia Semiconductors (China) Ltd (安世半導體中國), to bypass restrictions in place since October on the supply of silicon wafers — etched with tiny components to
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings Ltd has applied for regulatory approval to acquire the Taiwan operations of Germany-based Delivery Hero SE's Foodpanda in a deal valued at about US$600 million. Grab submitted the filing to the Fair Trade Commission on Friday last week, with the transaction subject to regulatory review and approval, the company said in a statement yesterday. Its independent governance structure would help foster a healthy and competitive market in Taiwan if the deal is approved, Grab said. Grab, which is listed on the NASDAQ, said in the filing that US-based Uber Technologies Inc holds about 13 percent of
Taiwan is open to joining a global liquefied natural gas (LNG) program if one is created, but on the condition that countries provide delivery even in a scenario where there is a conflict with China, an energy department official said yesterday. While Taiwan’s priority is to have enough LNG at home, the nation is open to exploring potential strategic reserves in other countries such as Japan or South Korea, Energy Administration Deputy Director-General Chen Chung-hsien (陳崇憲) said. While the LNG market does not have a global reserve for emergencies like that of oil, the concept has been raised a few times —
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday received government approval to deploy its advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process at its second fab currently under construction in Japan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a news release. The ministry green-lit the plan for the facility in Kumamoto, which is scheduled to start installing equipment and come online in 2028 with a monthly production capacity of 15,000 12-inch wafers, the ministry said. The Department of Investment Review in June 2024 authorized a US$5.26 billion investment for the facility, slated to manufacture 6- to 12nm chips, significantly less advanced than 3nm process. At a meeting with
RSS