Tingyi (Cayman Islands) Holding Corp’s (康師傅控股) Taiwan depositary receipts (TDR) yesterday slid 0.51 percent to NT$19.40 in Taipei trading after the company — the parent of China-based Master Kong Holdings (康師傅) — on Monday confirmed that it was dissolving its Taiwan operations.
Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團), which was involved in a series of food scandals in 2014 and 2015, was in charge of Master Kong’s instant noodle business in Taiwan.
The group’s board of directors has approved a plan to completely withdraw from the Taiwanese market, Ting Hsin’s vice president for public affairs Chia Hsien-der (賈先德) told reporters on Monday.
The dissolution would not affect the company’s TDR trading on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, Chia said.
Master Kong still needs to finish liquidating its assets and to submit an investment withdrawal application to the Investment Commission to complete its dissolution, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said.
A company official, who declined to be named, yesterday said that the China-based instant noodle brand had terminated its production contract with the group’s Wei Chuan Foods Corp (味全食品) after a series of oil safety scandals that sparked a boycott of Ting Hsin food products.
Master Kong stopped distributing its instant noodles in Taiwan in 2015, the official said by telephone.
“Master Kong has no plans to step into the Taiwanese market again in the near term,” he said, citing fierce market competition.
As for its China business, the official said that the company is also facing tough challenges because of weakening demand for instant noodles.
In the first three quarters of last year, Master Kong’s revenue fell 9.44 percent to US$6.91 billion from a year ago and its net profit plunged 37.85 percent to US$213 million.
The Chinese instant noodle industry’s revenue is estimated to have declined by 2 to 3 percent last year, the official said.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
RSS