PChome Online Inc’s (網路家庭) board of directors on Wednesday approved a private placement from Uni-President Enterprises Corp (統一企業), giving it a 30 percent stake in the e-commerce company.
In the deal, PChome would issue up to 61.69 million new common shares to Uni-President, which would become the largest institutional investor in the company, it said in a regulatory filing.
Uni-President, the nation’s largest food and beverage conglomerate, said in its regulatory filing on Wednesday that its board of directors had agreed to the private placement, which would allow it to secure two seats on PChome’s board.
Photo: CNA
The two companies did not disclose the total amount of the deal, which would be worth NT$1.96 billion (US$61.1 million) based on PChome’s closing share price of NT$31.75 on Wednesday.
The announcement helped push PChome’s share price up by the daily limit in Taipei trading yesterday, closing at NT$34.9, while Uni-President ended up 1.93 percent at NT$89.8, both outperforming the broader market’s 0.61 percent decline.
The private placement is expected to be completed after gaining shareholders’ approval in an extraordinary general meeting on Dec. 19, as well as regulatory approval, PChome said.
Unlike a public offering, an investor’s securities in a private placement are subject to a lockup period. Moreover, a private placement is considered to be more efficient and suitable for the company’s long-term planning while helping increase its working capital, PChome said.
Uni-President said the deal is part of its long-term investment plans. Last month, the company completed the acquisition of an 80 percent stake in Yahoo Taiwan Holdings Ltd’s (雅虎資訊) e-commerce business as it aims to increase sales from online stores and embrace the digital economy.
PChome has seen annual revenue drop in the past two years amid rising competition from rivals, and its cumulative revenue in the first three quarters of this year was down 8.55 percent year-on-year to NT$26.56 billion, the lowest level for the same period over the past six years.
The company has strengthened the sales of daily necessities, optimized its user interface that has been criticized for a long time, and reduced the number of loss-making subsidiaries after Alice Chang (張瑜珊) took over as chief executive officer in August 2022.
However, PChome’s performance remains weak compared with its peers such as Momo.com Inc (富邦媒體), which reported cumulative revenue of NT$79.09 billion in the first three quarters of this year, up 3.51 percent from a year earlier and marking the best result for the same period on record.
PChome reported NT$181.17 million in net losses for the first half of this year, with losses per share of NT$1.28. Prior to the September quarter, the company had posted 10 quarters of losses since the fourth quarter of 2021. In comparison, Momo.com reported NT$1.68 billion in net profit during the first half of the year, with earnings per share of NT$6.98.
RUN IT BACK: A succesful first project working with hyperscalers to design chips encouraged MediaTek to start a second project, aiming to hit stride in 2028 MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier, yesterday said it is engaging a second hyperscaler to help design artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators used in data centers following a similar project expected to generate revenue streams soon. The first AI accelerator project is to bring in US$1 billion revenue next year and several billion US dollars more in 2027, MediaTek chief executive officer Rick Tsai (蔡力行) told a virtual investor conference yesterday. The second AI accelerator project is expected to contribute to revenue beginning in 2028, Tsai said. MediaTek yesterday raised its revenue forecast for the global AI accelerator used
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
Artificial intelligence (AI) giant Nvidia Corp’s most advanced chips would be reserved for US companies and kept out of China and other countries, US President Donald Trump said. During an interview that aired on Sunday on CBS’ 60 Minutes program and in comments to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said only US customers should have access to the top-end Blackwell chips offered by Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization. “The most advanced, we will not let anybody have them other than the United States,” he told CBS, echoing remarks made earlier to reporters as he returned to Washington
RSS