EQUITIES
Foreigners buy NT$48.5bn
Foreign investors last week bought a net NT$48.5 billion (US$1.76 billion) of local shares after buying a net NT$19.53 billion a week earlier, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said in a statement yesterday. As of Thursday, foreign investors had sold an accumulated NT$454.09 billion of local shares since the beginning of last year, it said. Last week, the top three shares bought by foreign investors were United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), Innolux Corp (群創) and China Airlines Ltd (中華航空), while the top three sold were AcBel Polytech Inc (康舒科技), Kinpo Electronics Inc (金寶電子) and Walton Advanced Engineering Inc (華東科技), the exchange said. As of Thursday, the market capitalization of shares held by foreign investors was NT$24.44 trillion, or 43.48 percent of total market capitalization, it said.
SEMICONDUCTORS
CHPT revenue up 26.69%
Chunghwa Precision Test Technology Co (CHPT, 中華精測), a supplier of probe cards used for silicon wafer testing, yesterday reported that its revenue grew 26.69 percent annually to NT$423 million last month, the second-highest monthly sales figure in the company’s history. Customers were stockpiling 5G chips and market demand for high-performance computing chips rebounded, the company said. Last month’s figure boosted its fourth-quarter revenue 14.8 percent to NT$1.27 billion, from NT$1.11 billion in the third quarter. For the whole of last year, revenue edged up 0.78 percent to a record NT$4.24 billion from NT$4.21 billion in 2020.
SEMICONDUCTORS
TMC buys back 4.5m shares
Taiwan Mask Corp (TMC, 台灣光罩), a supplier of photomasks used to make semiconductors for silicon wafers, yesterday said it had bought back 4.485 million of its own shares over the past two months for NT$413 million. The number of repurchased shares accounted for 74.75 percent of the shares that the firm had planned to acquire on the open market to bolster its share price, TMC said in a regulatory filing. On Nov. 4, TMC began the buyback scheme, aiming to repurchase up to 6 million shares at NT$62 to NT$110 per share. The average repurchase price was NT$92.25, compared with the firm’s closing share price of NT$108 yesterday.
ELECTRONICS
Ichia’s annual revenue rises
Ichia Technologies Inc (毅嘉科技) yesterday reported revenue of NT$539 million for last month, an annual decline of 3 percent, due to a shortage of raw materials and the effects of inventory adjustments. Sales generated from flexible printed circuit integrated components reached NT$389 million last month, accounting for 72.17 percent of total sales, with the remainder coming from mechanical integrated components, it said. Despite the shortage of raw materials, Ichia reported consolidated revenue of NT$6.48 million for last year, up 17.73 percent from 2020 and the highest in three years.
STANDING HEAD
Microsoft releases e-mail fix
Microsoft Corp on Sunday offered a solution to a bug that caused some e-mail messages to become stuck on its Exchange platforms due to what it said was a New Year-related date-checking failure. The problem was not security-related, the company said in a blog post. A subsequent update gave two fixes, one that could be applied to all of a client’s servers and another that needed to be applied manually to individual servers. The bug caused messages to get stuck in transport queues on Exchange Server 2016 and Exchange Server 2019, it said.
SEMICONDUCTORS: The firm has already completed one fab, which is to begin mass producing 2-nanomater chips next year, while two others are under construction Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, plans to begin construction of its fourth and fifth wafer fabs in Kaohsiung next year, targeting the development of high-end processes. The two facilities — P4 and P5 — are part of TSMC’s production expansion program, which aims to build five fabs in Kaohsiung. TSMC facility division vice president Arthur Chuang (莊子壽) on Thursday said that the five facilities are expected to create 8,000 jobs. To respond to the fast-changing global semiconductor industry and escalating international competition, TSMC said it has to keep growing by expanding its production footprints. The P4 and P5
DOWNFALL: The Singapore-based oil magnate Lim Oon Kuin was accused of hiding US$800 million in losses and leaving 20 banks with substantial liabilities Former tycoon Lim Oon Kuin (林恩強) has been declared bankrupt in Singapore, following the collapse of his oil trading empire. The name of the founder of Hin Leong Trading Pte Ltd (興隆貿易) and his children Lim Huey Ching (林慧清) and Lim Chee Meng (林志朋) were listed as having been issued a bankruptcy order on Dec. 19, the government gazette showed. The younger Lims were directors at the company. Leow Quek Shiong and Seah Roh Lin of BDO Advisory Pte Ltd are the trustees, according to the gazette. At its peak, Hin Leong traded a range of oil products, made lubricants and operated loading
The growing popularity of Chinese sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks has shaken up Mexico’s luxury car market, hitting sales of traditionally dominant brands such as Mercedes-Benz and BMW. Mexicans are increasingly switching from traditionally dominant sedans to Chinese vehicles due to a combination of comfort, technology and price, industry experts say. It is no small feat in a country home to factories of foreign brands such as Audi and BMW, and where until a few years ago imported Chinese cars were stigmatized, as in other parts of the world. The high-end segment of the market registered a sales drop
Citigroup Inc and Bank of America Corp said they are leaving a global climate-banking group, becoming the latest Wall Street lenders to exit the coalition in the past month. In a statement, Citigroup said while it remains committed to achieving net zero emissions, it is exiting the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA). Bank of America said separately on Tuesday that it is also leaving NZBA, adding that it would continue to work with clients on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The banks’ departure from NZBA follows Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Wells Fargo & Co. The largest US financial institutions are under increasing pressure
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