BNP Paribas is mulling whether to issue its second batch of foreign currency-denominated bonds on the nation's offshore bond exchange, the bank said yesterday.
"We are committed to the market ? and plan to issue [similar products] regularly," Laurent de Meyere, president of BNP Paribas' Taiwan branch, said yesterday.
Mark Adams, head of Asia-Pacific debt capital markets at BNP Paribas' Hong Kong branch, said the company could issue bonds on behalf of renowned European companies, such as BMW, in order to attract investors in Taiwan, which is a brand-conscious market.
Issuing structured notes targeted at institutional investors is also an option, he said, without elaborating.
BNP Paribas has just completed issuing its first batch of Australian currency-denominated bonds worth A$308 million (US$258 million). The product was listed for trading on April 10.
Four or five foreign financial institutions are interested in rolling out bonds products and are in talks with local underwriters at the moment, said Lee Shyan-yuan (李賢源), a policy-making member of the Financial Supervisory Commission, who is also the major promoter and designer of the offshore bond market, Formosa Bond.
John Lee (李鐘培), head of HSBC Ltd's capital markets division, said last month that the bank planned to launch a bond by the end of the current quarter.
The bond market has great potential to be explored as only US$500 million of bonds are currently in issue, compared to the US$79 billion of foreign currency savings in both domestic and offshore business units, FSC's Lee said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday obtained the government’s approval to inject an additional US$10.26 billion to finance the construction of its second fab in Kumamoto, Japan, and a second fab in Arizona, using advanced process technologies. The Department of Investment Review approved TSMC’s investment applications on the basis that Taiwan remains a major technology and manufacturing hub for the chipmaker, which makes its most advanced chips at home, the company operates its research-and-development center here and the majority of its capacity remains in Taiwan. The latest capital injections — US$5.26 billion for its Japanese venture Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing
DIVERSIFYING: Following customers’ demand to improve supply chain resilience, ASE is looking for sites in the US, Japan and Mexico, a company executive said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it plans to launch a new high-end chip testing fab in the US next month to better serve its key customers based in North America, particularly California-based artificial intelligence (AI) customers. The new US testing facility would be operated by the firm’s subsidiary ISE Labs Inc, it said. ASE’s major customers, and high-ranking US officials and representatives from American Institute in Taiwan are to attend the fab’s opening ceremony on July 12, it said. ISE Labs last year acquired a 5,942m2 facility in San
Local companies believe that nearly a third of all job opportunities will vanish in 10 years due to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), according to a survey released by online job bank yes123 on Tuesday. In the survey of 1,016 companies on the labor market’s third quarter outlook, the job bank focused in part on AI’s impact on workers and asked companies what percentage of jobs they felt would be lost to AI’s round-the-clock productivity and high-speed computing prowess. Respondents felt on average that 29.2 percent of job opportunities would be lost to AI over the next 10 years, but there
Taiwanese workers earned an average of NT$47,000 per month this year, but 40 percent are struggling financially and 18 percent plan to switch jobs within 12 months, two separate surveys showed yesterday. The amount equals a 5.4 percent increase from a year earlier to a decade high, 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said. The government is due to review the nation’s minimum wages. Employees at computer and consumer electronics manufacturers reported the highest average monthly wage of NT$60,000 a month, followed by semiconductor firms at NT$59,000, and vendors of shoe and textile products, along with software and Internet businesses at NT$55,000, 104 Job