Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運) yesterday said that it has acquired a 10 percent stake in Charing Yang Development Co (長陽開發) for NT$450 million (US$14.67 million) as the nation’s largest container cargo shipper aims to seek stable dividend income.
The investment raises Evergreen Marine’s stake in Charing Yang Development to 50 percent, company president Eric Hsieh (謝惠全) told a news conference in Taipei.
Hsieh said Evergreen Marine increased its investment in Charing Yang, as the developer has reported stable profit growth and dividends in the past few years on the back of rent revenue from department stores in central Taoyuan.
Photo: CNA
The shipper expects the value of real estate in the area to increase, he said.
Evergreen Marine has also decided to purchase two office buildings in Taoyuan from Evergreen International Corp (長榮國際) for NT$4.74 billion, Hsieh said.
The property purchase is for the shipper’s own use and aims to reduce rental costs while seeking investment gains, he said.
Commenting on the outlook of the cargo shipping sector, Hsieh said that Evergreen Marine has seen demand rebound from last month, with its load factor rising above 90 percent this month following the easing of COVID-19 restrictions in China.
Freight rates on some routes have decreased at a slower rate, while some have begun to recover, he said.
With some of its peers planning to charge higher fees from next month, Evergreen Marine plans to follow suit by imposing an additional fee of US$1,000 per container on US routes, given rising demand, Hsieh said.
“Business should be rosy before the Lunar New Year holiday,” he said.
Next year, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the implementation of stricter emissions rules by the International Maritime Organization would affect the shipping market the most, Hsieh said.
Evergreen last month reported a double-digit annual fall in revenue to NT$36 billion, but its cumulative revenue still rose 37 percent to NT$597 billion for the first 11 months of this year thanks to strong revenue growth in the first half of this year, company data showed.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
STILL LOADED: Last year’s richest person, Quanta Computer Inc chairman Barry Lam, dropped to second place despite an 8 percent increase in his wealth to US$12.6 billion Staff writer, with CNA Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) and Richard Tsai (蔡明興), the brothers who run Fubon Group (富邦集團), topped the Forbes list of Taiwan’s 50 richest people this year, released on Wednesday in New York. The magazine said that a stronger New Taiwan dollar pushed the combined wealth of Taiwan’s 50 richest people up 13 percent, from US$174 billion to US$197 billion, with 36 of the people on the list seeing their wealth increase. That came as Taiwan’s economy grew 4.6 percent last year, its fastest pace in three years, driven by the strong performance of the semiconductor industry, the magazine said. The Tsai
RSS