HTC Corp (宏達電) yesterday said it is to sell a plot of land and a building in Taoyuan to Inventec Corp (英業達) for NT$6.06 billion (US$183.46 million) as part of its efforts to lower operational costs and boost efficiency.
The local smartphone maker said the production facilities and its employees would be transferred to HTC’s three other properties in Taoyuan to centralize its production facilities.
“The sale of the land and building will not affect HTC’s production capacity or shipping schedules,” an HTC investor relations officer said by telephone.
The officer said the transaction also has no implications for HTC’s operations or headcount.
After deducting transaction costs and tax payments, the firm is to book a NT$2.1 billion non-operating gain from the sale of the land and the building, the smartphone company said.
“A non-operating gain of NT$2.1 billion is to be booked in the first quarter of next year,” the officer said.
When asked whether HTC has plans to sell other assets to continue to cut its operating costs, the company said it would review all the possibilities based on its operational needs.
The smartphone maker reported a net loss of NT$12.56 billion in the first three quarters of this year, a significant decline from a net profit of NT$1.01 billion in the same period last year.
That represented a loss per share of NT$14.68 from January to September, compared with earnings per share of NT$1.23 last year.
In the quarter ending Sept. 30, HTC had NT$43.3 billion in cash and cash equivalents, its balance sheet showed.
In an attempt to meet the expanding scale of its server business, Inventec said its board of directors approved the NT$6.06 billion purchase of the land and building from HTC.
“The building will be used as the main office of Inventec’s server business,” an Inventec investor relations officer said by telephone.
The officer said Inventec’s server business is based in two offices in Taoyuan and the purchase of the building from HTC would help the company centralize the management of its server business.
The officer said the firm also plans to set up a research and development center for the server business in the building.
Inventec said it expects the transaction to complete in March next year and it expects to transfer the server business and its employees to the building in the second quarter of next year.
The NT$6.06 billion transaction costs would be booked in the first quarter of next year, the firm said.
After moving the server business to the new building, the remaining offices in Taoyuan would be used for Inventec’s solar business, the officer said.
HTC shares rose 0.63 percent to close at NT$79.5 in Taipei trading yesterday, while Inventec shares remained unchanged at NT$21.9. The TAIEX lost 0.77 percent.
PROTECTION: The investigation, which takes aim at exporters such as Canada, Germany and Brazil, came days after Trump unveiled tariff hikes on steel and aluminum products US President Donald Trump on Saturday ordered a probe into potential tariffs on lumber imports — a move threatening to stoke trade tensions — while also pushing for a domestic supply boost. Trump signed an executive order instructing US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick to begin an investigation “to determine the effects on the national security of imports of timber, lumber and their derivative products.” The study might result in new tariffs being imposed, which would pile on top of existing levies. The investigation takes aim at exporters like Canada, Germany and Brazil, with White House officials earlier accusing these economies of
Teleperformance SE, the largest call-center operator in the world, is rolling out an artificial intelligence (AI) system that softens English-speaking Indian workers’ accents in real time in a move the company claims would make them more understandable. The technology, called accent translation, coupled with background noise cancelation, is being deployed in call centers in India, where workers provide customer support to some of Teleperformance’s international clients. The company provides outsourced customer support and content moderation to global companies including Apple Inc, ByteDance Ltd’s (字節跳動) TikTok and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. “When you have an Indian agent on the line, sometimes it’s hard
‘SACRED MOUNTAIN’: The chipmaker can form joint ventures abroad, except in China, but like other firms, it needs government approval for large investments Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) needs government permission for any overseas joint ventures (JVs), but there are no restrictions on making the most advanced chips overseas other than for China, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. US media have said that TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker and a major supplier to companies such as Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp, has been in talks for a stake in Intel Corp. Neither company has confirmed the talks, but US President Donald Trump has accused Taiwan of taking away the US’ semiconductor business and said he wants the industry back
PROBE CONTINUES: Those accused falsely represented that the chips would not be transferred to a person other than the authorized end users, court papers said Singapore charged three men with fraud in a case local media have linked to the movement of Nvidia’s advanced chips from the city-state to Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) firm DeepSeek (深度求索). The US is investigating if DeepSeek, the Chinese company whose AI model’s performance rocked the tech world in January, has been using US chips that are not allowed to be shipped to China, Reuters reported earlier. The Singapore case is part of a broader police investigation of 22 individuals and companies suspected of false representation, amid concerns that organized AI chip smuggling to China has been tracked out of nations such
RSS