Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) plans sale of global depositary receipts (GDRs) to raise working capital for its operations as the company looks to cash in on the overall recovery of the global semiconductor sector.
The company said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday that it would sell GDRs in a quantity equal to up to 420 million common shares.
That translates to a fund-raising potential of around NT$26.3 billion (US$831.5 million) based on the company’s closing price of NT$62.6 yesterday.
Photo: Grace Hung, Taipei Times
Powerchip, which provides foundry services in advanced memory chips and logic chips, said it would issue new shares for the GDR sale.
The company has scheduled a general meeting on April 10 to discuss the common share issuance and the GDR deal as well as a reshuffle of its board of directors, it said.
In addition to boosting its working capital, the proceeds of the GDR sale would be used to repay bank loans and meet fund demand for future growth, the company said.
The GDR sale is the second move by Powerchip to raise funds in just days after the company announced on Saturday last week that it signed an exclusive letter of intent (LOI) with US-based DRAM maker Micron Technology Inc to sell its P5 fab in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) for US$1.8 billion.
The transaction is expected to be completed in the second quarter of this year, the company said.
Under the LOI, Micron will set up a long-term foundry relationship with Powerchip on advanced DRAM packaging wafer manufacturing and help the company strengthen its specialty DRAM processes.
After the Tongluo plant sale, the company will reorganize its production resources, including its three 12-inch and two 8-inch wafer fabs, to tackle the artificial intelligence (AI) supply chain, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) said in a separate statement.
The company will focus on value-added wafer foundry products for AI applications such as 3D AI DRAMs, wafer-on-wafer packaging technology, silicon interposers and integrated passive devices, power management chips and power components, he said.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
RSS