TUTORING SERVICES
Bexcellent up 34% on IPO
Shares of Bexcellent Group Holdings Ltd (精英匯集團控股), whose top tutor earns more than HK$40 million (US$5.1 million) a year, yesterday surged as much as 34 percent on their first day of trading in Hong Kong. The provider of tutoring services to Hong Kong secondary-school students was so popular that individual investors placed orders for about 289 times the stock initially available to them. Bexcellent raised HK$135 million in its initial public offering (IPO) after pricing the shares near the top of a marketed range. This was in contrast to Xiaomi Corp (小米), which two weeks ago priced its IPO at the low end. Bexcellent shares closed at HK$1.32, a 22 percent gain from the IPO price of HK$1.08.
RANKINGS
Largan tops Asia300 list
Smartphone camera lens supplier Largan Precision Co (大立光) topped Nikkei’s Asia300 list of the 325 fastest-growing and most valuable companies in the region, excluding Japan. The Nikkei Asian Review, which produced the list, said it used five criteria to determine the ranking: average revenue and net profit growth, return on equity, net profit margin and the ratio of shareholder equity to total assets over the past five years. India’s TCL Technologies Holding Ltd came in second, ahead of Indonesian property developer Bumi Serpong Damai, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) tied with Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊) in fourth place, Nikkei said.
PLASTICS
FPC executive out on bail
Taipei prosecutors yesterday released former high-ranking Formosa Plastics Corp (FPC, 台塑) executive Lee Sun-ju (李孫儒) on NT$5 million (US$163,634) bail as he faces allegations of receiving tens of millions of New Taiwan dollars in kickbacks from the firm’s suppliers. Lee was questioned yesterday at the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office for suspected contraventions of the Securities and Exchange Act (證券交易法). He was in charge of procurement in his role as deputy general manager of the information technology department.
TRADE
TAITRA official upbeat
Taiwan has spent the past few years diversifying its export markets and promoting industrial transformation, which should help minimize the effects of the ongoing trade dispute between the US and China, a Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會) official said on Thursday. “Even if the US-China trade war drags on, Taiwan must be prepared, but not panic,” TAITRA vice chairman Liu Shih-chung (劉世忠) said at a seminar sponsored by the Stimson Center on the impact of the trade dispute. TAITRA contacted China-based Taiwanese businesses before the trade dispute began and several forecast that it would take three to six months to gauge its impact, Liu said. “Taiwan will unavoidably be affected if the US-China trade war develops into a long drawn-out affair,” Liu said.
INVESTMENT
Green loans, bonds surge
As of the end of May, domestic banks’ total outstanding loans to the green energy sector stood at NT$1.089 trillion, while insurance companies’ investment in power plants using renewable energy sources reached NT$7.48 billion, Financial Supervisory Commission statistics showed. In addition, NT$41.8 billion of green bonds were sold in Taiwan. The numbers were up by NT$44.2 billion, NT$2.13 billion and NT$21.2 billion respectively from the levels recorded at the end of last year.
Merida Industry Co (美利達) has seen signs of recovery in the US and European markets this year, as customers are gradually depleting their inventories, the bicycle maker told shareholders yesterday. Given robust growth in new orders at its Taiwanese factory, coupled with its subsidiaries’ improving performance, Merida said it remains confident about the bicycle market’s prospects and expects steady growth in its core business this year. CAUTION ON CHINA However, the company must handle the Chinese market with great caution, as sales of road bikes there have declined significantly, affecting its revenue and profitability, Merida said in a statement, adding that it would
MARKET LEADERSHIP: Investors are flocking to Nvidia, drawn by the company’s long-term fundamntals, dominant position in the AI sector, and pricing and margin power Two years after Nvidia Corp made history by becoming the first chipmaker to achieve a US$1 trillion market capitalization, an even more remarkable milestone is within its grasp: becoming the first company to reach US$4 trillion. After the emergence of China’s DeepSeek (深度求索) sent the stock plunging earlier this year and stoked concerns that outlays on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure were set to slow, Nvidia shares have rallied back to a record. The company’s biggest customers remain full steam ahead on spending, much of which is flowing to its computing systems. Microsoft Corp, Meta Platforms Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc are
RISING: Strong exports, and life insurance companies’ efforts to manage currency risks indicates the NT dollar would eventually pass the 29 level, an expert said The New Taiwan dollar yesterday rallied to its strongest in three years amid inflows to the nation’s stock market and broad-based weakness in the US dollar. Exporter sales of the US currency and a repatriation of funds from local asset managers also played a role, said two traders, who asked not to be identified as they were not authorized to speak publicly. State-owned banks were seen buying the greenback yesterday, but only at a moderate scale, the traders said. The local currency gained 0.77 percent, outperforming almost all of its Asian peers, to close at NT$29.165 per US dollar in Taipei trading yesterday. The
The US overtaking China as Taiwan’s top export destination could boost industrial development and wage growth, given the US is a high-income economy, an economist said yesterday. However, Taiwan still needs to diversify its export markets due to the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s administration, said Chiou Jiunn-rong (邱俊榮), an economics professor at National Central University. Taiwan’s exports soared to a record US$51.74 billion last month, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products and continued orders, with information and communication technology (ICT) and audio/video products leading all sectors. The US reclaimed its position as Taiwan’s top export market, accounting for
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