Shares of Acer Inc (宏電), which makes computers under its own brand and for other manufacturers, plunged after fire destroyed offices at five of its units adjacent to the company's Taipei headquarters in Hsichih's Eastern Science Park (東方科學園區) on Sunday.
Shares in Acer fell as much as NT$1.30 to NT$18 after the weekend fire caused an estimated NT$670 million (US$20.4 million) of damage to offices in a 26-floor building that housed Aopen Inc, Hi-Trust Co (
Aopen shares fell NT$4.0, or 4.9 percent, to NT$77. The stock fell by the 7 percent limit to NT$75.50 earlier.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
The NT$670 million losses include fire damage before insurance coverage -- NT$440 million in structural damage to the three fire-affected buildings and NT$230 million in damage to equipment and inventory contained within the burned offices.
Operations at Acer Inc and Acer Sertek (
Acer has backup copies of destroyed essential data at other locations, although fire insurance didn't cover NT$100 million of the damage, Chairman Stan Shih (施振榮) said. Shih said yesterday the insurance deductible was NT$130 million.
"The fire will have a short-term effect on the stock," said Angela Soh, an analyst at ING Barings Securities (Hong Kong) Ltd, who estimates Acer's fair value at NT$20.40 a share. "Most of the monetary damage is recoverable from insurance companies."
Acer's insurers include Zurich Financial Services AG and Fubon Insurance Co (富邦產險). Fubon shares fell 3.1 percent to NT$27.90.
Shinkong Insurance Co (
Aopen makes almost all of the parts for a basic personal computer. Hi-Trust sells systems and software that check identities on the Internet.
Servex distributes Acer and Aopen products, Acer Pivotal is a software company, and Apacer makes computer memory-chip components.
Other publicly traded companies with offices damaged in the fire include SerComm Corp (中磊電子), a computer server maker, Wei Chuan Foods Corp (味全食品) and Tuntex Distinct Corp (東雲紡織), a textile maker controlled by the financially troubled Tuntex Group (東帝士集團), which owns the building. Tuntex Distinct shares fell by the 7 percent limit to NT$1.11 a share. Wei Chuan estimated loses at around US$140 million.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance said it will allow companies hurt by the fire to defer repayments for six months on loans due this year.
"Companies may have lost accounting and financial records in the fire, so bankers should help those victims," political vice finance minister Sean Chen (
Chen made the comments at an emergency ministry meeting held yesterday morning to discuss post-fire assistance measures.
"Some damaged firms have only 1 percent to 2 percent of their operation located in the Eastern Science Park, therefore not all the firms [in the complex] have to extend their bank loans. The exact amount of the loan extension could not be estimated currently," Chen said.
Tuntex has requested the government rollover the group's more than NT$60 billion in non-performing loans.
In addition, the ministry decided that affected firms would be permitted to postpone filing of corporate income taxes.
An official of the ministry's Department of Insurance (
But since the damage report has not yet been completed, the total insurance claims can not be estimated.
Also seeking to lend help, the central bank said yesterday that Taiwan firms that suffer damages and losses from the fire can apply by Nov. 23 for the waiver of any bounced check records filed between May 14 and Nov. 14.
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