■REAL ESTATE
Cathay buys Neihu building
Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), Taiwan’s biggest life insurer, bought a building in Neihu Technology Park (內湖科技園區) for NT$3 billion (US$96 million), its second property investment in Taipei this year. Cathay Life paid NT$410,000 per ping (3.3m²) for the headquarters of Gala Television Corp (八大電視), the Taipei-based insurer said in a stock exchange filing through parent Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), the country’s biggest financial services company by market value, yesterday. The value per ping was a record for Neihu District, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported yesterday. Cathay Life won a tender for 2,629m² of land in downtown Taipei with a NT$2.39 billion bid last month.
■BANKING
Taishin sues Chiu Yi
Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控), whose shareholders include billionaire George Soros, has filed civil and criminal charges against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) for alleging its 2005 bid for Chang Hwa Commercial Bank (彰化銀行) was illegal. Complaints of libel and obstruction of credit were filed on Friday with the Taipei District Court, Taishin said in a stock exchange filing after market closed on Friday. The company denies all allegations made by Chiu, it said in the statement. Taishin is seeking a public apology from Chiu, the Economic Daily News reported yesterday, citing Lin Keh-hsiao (林克孝), president of the Taipei-based financial company.
■INVESTMENT
Park draws NT$1.8bn
Total investment in the Kaohsiung Software Technology Park (高雄軟體科技園區) as of this month reached nearly NT$1.8 billion (US$57.19 million), the Export Processing Zone Administration of the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Friday. A spokesman for the administration said the investment came from 56 approved investors who have decided to set up shop in the software park, and that the amount represented a substantial increase from the NT$12.2 billion recorded in June. Of the accumulated total of NT$1.8 million, NT$713 million was invested in the first eight months of this year by 23 companies, the spokesman said.
■SPONSORSHIP
NBA inks deal with Tsingtao
The National Basketball Association signed a multiyear sponsorship agreement with Tsingtao Brewery Co (青島啤酒) in which China’s largest brewer will fund sports and dance competitions related to the league in the world’s most populous nation. Tsingtao, China’s biggest beer company by sales, will sponsor a nationwide search for an NBA China Dance Team, help finance basketball tours in the country and assist in an All-Star Game balloting system, the NBA said in a statement yesterday. Terms weren’t disclosed.
■AVIATION
Boeing may not rebid
US aerospace giant Boeing said on Friday it may exit the rebidding for a US$35 billion contract to build US Air Force aerial refueling tankers unless allowed more time to rework its proposal. The Department of Defense was forced in June to rebid the contract after congressional auditors found flaws in the air force’s decision to award it to Northrop Grumman and the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), parent of Airbus. The Pentagon contract is for 179 aircraft, the initial phase of a fleet replacement project worth some US$100 billion over the next 30 years.
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
VERTICAL INTEGRATION: The US fabless company’s acquisition of the data center manufacturer would not affect market competition, the Fair Trade Commission said The Fair Trade Commission has approved Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) bid to fully acquire ZT International Group Inc for US$4.9 billion, saying it would not hamper market competition. As AMD is a fabless company that designs central processing units (CPUs) used in consumer electronics and servers, while ZT is a data center manufacturer, the vertical integration would not affect market competition, the commission said in a statement yesterday. ZT counts hyperscalers such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Google among its major clients and plays a minor role in deciding the specifications of data centers, given the strong bargaining power of
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
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