EQUITIES
TAIEX rallies to day’s high
Local shares yesterday staged a conspicuous rebound to finish at the session’s high, led by electronics and financial shares. The TAIEX closed up 182.63 points, or 1.71 percent, at 10,836.91, recovering the five-day moving average of 10,744 and the yearly moving average of 10,716, on turnover of NT$139.691 billion (US$4.58 billion). Although fears of a trade war between the US and China have not fully dispersed, analysts said local shares rallied in reflection of the lowered tension as long as the US refrains from triggering new unease. The stock market is expected to stay stable and gradually climb due to relatively thin trade at a time when foreign institutional investors have started to walk away from the trading floor with the start of the summer break.
BANKING
TBB forecasts improvement
State-run Taiwan Business Bank (TBB, 台灣企銀) expects performance to improve this quarter and continue growing in the next two quarters, chairman James Shih (施建安) told an annual general meeting yesterday, adding that he expects the company’s stock price to soon rise above the face value of NT$10 per share with book value of NT$13.28 per share. TBB shares yesterday closed at NT$9.41 in Taipei trading. The company reported pretax profit of NT$0.49 per share in the first five months of this year. Last year, net profit totaled NT$5.04 billion, or NT$0.82 per share.
BANKING
OBU assets total US$203bn
The 60 offshore banking units (OBUs) of financial institutions operating in Taiwan had assets totaling US$203.156 billion as of the end of last month, down US$764 million, or 0.4 percent, from April, the central bank said in a statement yesterday. The OBUs of 37 local banks held US$180.86 billion in assets, while foreign banks’ 23 OBUs held US$22.296 billion, it said. At the end of last month, the primary uses of all OBUs’ funds were discounts and loans, amounting to US$82.142 billion, or 40.4 percent of total assets, it added.
SERVICES
Synnex to acquire Convergys
New York Stock Exchange-listed Synnex Corp, in which Taiwan’s Synnex Technology International Corp (聯強國際) has an interest, yesterday announced that it would acquire Convergys Corp and then integrate it with Concentrix, a wholly owned subsidiary and top global provider of customer relationship management and business process outsourcing services. The Fremont, California-based firm said it has reached a definitive agreement with Convergys, but did not disclose financial terms. The transaction is expected to close by the end of this calendar year, subject to the approval of shareholders of both companies, regulatory requirements and customary closing conditions, the company said in a statement.
ELECTRONICS
CCIS warns of overreliance
Six of Taiwan’s top 10 corporations by net revenue are electronics companies that are part of Apple Inc’s supply chain, resulting in an overreliance on the US company, a China Credit Information Service (CCIS, 中華徵信所) report said on Thursday. Total revenue for the six enterprises, including Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), increased from NT$34.7542 trillion in 2016 to a record high of NT$36.1433 trillion last year, the report said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that its investment plan in Arizona is going according to schedule, following a local media report claiming that the company is planning to break ground on its third wafer fab in the US in June. In a statement, TSMC said it does not comment on market speculation, but that its investments in Arizona are proceeding well. TSMC is investing more than US$65 billion in Arizona to build three advanced wafer fabs. The first one has started production using the 4-nanometer (nm) process, while the second one would start mass production using the
A TAIWAN DEAL: TSMC is in early talks to fully operate Intel’s US semiconductor factories in a deal first raised by Trump officials, but Intel’s interest is uncertain Broadcom Inc has had informal talks with its advisers about making a bid for Intel Corp’s chip-design and marketing business, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Nothing has been submitted to Intel and Broadcom could decide not to pursue a deal, according to the Journal. Bloomberg News earlier reported that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is in early talks for a controlling stake in Intel’s factories at the request of officials at US President Donald Trump’s administration, as the president looks to boost US manufacturing and maintain the country’s leadership in critical technologies. Trump officials raised the
‘SILVER LINING’: Although the news caused TSMC to fall on the local market, an analyst said that as tariffs are not set to go into effect until April, there is still time for negotiations US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile and pharmaceutical imports of about 25 percent, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2 in a move that would represent a dramatic widening of the US leader’s trade war. “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs. Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductors, the president said that “it’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll
CHIP BOOM: Revenue for the semiconductor industry is set to reach US$1 trillion by 2032, opening up opportunities for the chip pacakging and testing company, it said ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控), the world’s largest provider of outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) services, yesterday launched a new advanced manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia, aiming to meet growing demand for emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The US$300 million facility is a critical step in expanding ASE’s global footprint, offering an alternative for customers from the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and China to assemble and test chips outside of Taiwan amid efforts to diversify supply chains. The plant, the company’s fifth in Malaysia, is part of a strategic expansion plan that would more than triple
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