Tatung Co (大同) chairman Lu Ming-kuang (盧明光) and president Chaney Ho (何春盛) yesterday announced their resignations, adding further uncertainty at the troubled conglomerate which has undergone several changes to its management team since last year.
When he took the job late last year, 72-year-old Lu had envisioned implementing a five-year plan to turn the company around before retiring again. Yesterday, he said he was proud of what he had achieved since returning to the company.
“I’ve not done wrong by the largest shareholder, the employees or the investors who came in because they believed in my management team,” Lu told a news conference in Taipei.
Photo: CNA
Lu came out of retirement to take over as chairman in December last year after his predecessor, Lin Wen-yuan (林文淵), stepped down from the position after 50 days in office amid a disagreement with major shareholder Shanyuan Group (三圓建設) chairman Wang Kuang-hsiang (王光祥).
Under Lu’s leadership, Tatung’s nine business units all returned to profitability, Ho said.
“We did our level best to save Tatung” said Ho, who joined the company in June. “We took a company that was going backward and turned it into a company that was making a slow forward motion.”
However, that was not enough for Wang, who yesterday thanked, praised and bowed to Lu and Ho, before escorting them out of the news conference.
It is time for Tatung to start paying a dividend again and develop its substantial real-estate assets, said Wang, who is a director of Tatung and also chairs the company’s real-estate subsidiary, Shan Chih Asset Development Co (尚志資產開發).
“Tatung shareholders are like paupers sitting in a house made of gold,” Wang said.
There are rumors that Wang is likely to take over as Tatung chairman when the company holds a board meeting on Tuesday next week.
“We will now comprehensively develop our real-estate portfolio, our renewable energy business and our electric bus,” Wang said. “Chairman Lu was hardworking and conscientious, but it’s been 20 years since Tatung paid a dividend, we will not let our investors wait another five.”
Chung Yi-wen (鍾依文), who made way for Ho in June, is expected to return as president.
“The fundamental principle of business is profitability,” Chung said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”