With sales growing steadily and a new capacity to secure more orders, Tong Lung Metal Industry Co (
The company will be listed on the over-the-counter GRETAI Securities Market next Wednesday as a common stock that can be traded normally, instead of through full-payment transactions.
"I'm proud to announce that Tong Lung has completed its corporate restructuring," chairman Wang Chung-yu (王鍾渝) said.
Tong Lung incurred a debt of NT$6.2 billion (US$190.8 million) in 1998 after the company's then president lost NT$8.8 billion as a through stock-market speculation.
The company managed to earn NT$2.2 billion by 2000, and according to the Chiayi District Court was the first Taiwanese firm to complete its restructuring in such a short period.
"To me, a successful restructuring requires satisfaction of creditor banks, employees, clients and shareholders. Therefore the restructuring had not been completed until today," Wang said.
Tong Lung is known for making "Ezset"-brand locks for the overseas markets, as well as "Lucky" and "Posse" brands for the domestic market. The company reported sales of NT$2.07 billion last year, a 15.6 percent jump from 2004. It posted after-tax earnings of NT$375 million, or earnings per share of NT$5.28, last year. The company's gross margin for last year was 25.6 percent.
Wang said that the company issued NT$1 in cash per share and a NT$0.2 dividend per share to its stockholders last year, and would determine the size of bonuses for this year after the board meeting.
He refused to give a forecast for this year, saying merely that Tong Lung was conducting good business because of larger overseas lock makers outsourcing to cheaper Asia manufacturers.
Orders from North America constitute 77 percent of Tong Lung's sales, followed by the local market with 17 percent.
A research report issued by Taiwan Securities Co (
Taiwan Securities predicted that the company would see sales increase to NT$2.66 billion, with after-tax earnings rising to NT$389 million, or earnings per share of NT$5.53.
The earnings per share could be higher if the NT$104 million worth of preferred shares are not converted to common shares in September, said Shih Chi-pin (
"We are very positive about the company due to its fundamentals and the prospering industry," Shih said. "We may hike our target price for the stock further."
After a few days of soaring to the stock exchange's daily 7 percent limit, shares of Tong Lung weakened by 2.46 percent to close at NT$47.6 yesterday.
Looking ahead, Tong Lung plans to gradually move its low-end production to
its factory in the Philippines to save costs, deputy general manager James
Chien (簡詩宏) said.
The factory started mass production this year with initial capacity of
300,000 units per month. The Taiwan plant's current capacity is 1.5 million
units per month.
High-end production, the company's brandname products and the
research-and-development center will remain in Taiwan to create higher added
value, Chien said.
As Tong Lung is expected to pay off its remaining debt of NT$527 million by
the end of this year, it might expand production of low-end products to
low-cost countries, Wang said.
The company is currently looking for strategic alliances in the market, he
added.
SELL-OFF: Investors expect tariff-driven volatility as the local boarse reopens today, while analysts say government support and solid fundamentals would steady sentiment Local investors are bracing for a sharp market downturn today as the nation’s financial markets resume trading following a two-day closure for national holidays before the weekend, with sentiment rattled by US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff announcement. Trump’s unveiling of new “reciprocal tariffs” on Wednesday triggered a sell-off in global markets, with the FTSE Taiwan Index Futures — a benchmark for Taiwanese equities traded in Singapore — tumbling 9.2 percent over the past two sessions. Meanwhile, the American depositary receipts (ADRs) of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the most heavily weighted stock on the TAIEX, plunged 13.8 percent in
A wave of stop-loss selling and panic selling hit Taiwan's stock market at its opening today, with the weighted index plunging 2,086 points — a drop of more than 9.7 percent — marking the largest intraday point and percentage loss on record. The index bottomed out at 19,212.02, while futures were locked limit-down, with more than 1,000 stocks hitting their daily drop limit. Three heavyweight stocks — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (Foxconn, 鴻海精密) and MediaTek (聯發科) — hit their limit-down prices as soon as the market opened, falling to NT$848 (US$25.54), NT$138.5 and NT$1,295 respectively. TSMC's
ASML Holding NV, the sole producer of the most advanced machines used in semiconductor manufacturing, said geopolitical tensions are harming innovation a day after US President Donald Trump levied massive tariffs that promise to disrupt trade flows across the entire world. “Our industry has been built basically on the ability of people to work together, to innovate together,” ASML chief executive officer Christophe Fouquet said in a recorded message at a Thursday industry event in the Netherlands. Export controls and increasing geopolitical tensions challenge that collaboration, he said, without specifically addressing the new US tariffs. Tech executives in the EU, which is
In a small town in Paraguay, a showdown is brewing between traditional producers of yerba mate, a bitter herbal tea popular across South America, and miners of a shinier treasure: gold. A rush for the precious metal is pitting mate growers and indigenous groups against the expanding operations of small-scale miners who, until recently, were their neighbors, not nemeses. “They [the miners] have destroyed everything... The canals, springs, swamps,” said Vidal Britez, president of the Yerba Mate Producers’ Association of the town of Paso Yobai, about 210km east of capital Asuncion. “You can see the pollution from the dead fish.
RSS