GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓) is close to clearing an important regulatory hurdle in its US$5.3 billion acquisition of German silicon wafer manufacturer Siltronic AG, people familiar with the matter said.
The Chinese State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) has said that it is largely comfortable with the antitrust remedies proposed by the companies and could make a formal decision shortly, the people said, asking not to be identified as they were discussing confidential information.
The deal still requires approval from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, and those discussions are ongoing, the people said.
Photo: CNA
GlobalWafers shares were up as much as 7.6 percent in Taipei yesterday, while Siltronic rose 1.1 percent in Frankfurt on Tuesday, giving it a market value of about US$4.7 billion.
“We are still waiting for the final approval in China, but all questions have been answered,” GlobalWafers chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said in an interview with German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published on Tuesday.
The German government might be concerned that GlobalWafers is headquartered in Taiwan, rather than in Europe, she added.
A representative for Siltronic declined to comment, while a SAMR spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment outside regular business hours.
A representative for the German economy ministry had no immediate comment.
GlobalWafers and Siltronic announced their tie-up in December 2020.
The companies said in October last year that they were in protracted discussions over regulatory clearances in China and Germany.
The takeover would be GlobalWafers’ largest ever and also one of the chip industry’s biggest in the past few years.
Competition in the market for semiconductors is heating up as companies that were once customers such as Apple Inc, are designing their own chips and established players such as Nvidia Corp branch out into new areas.
Headquartered in Munich, Siltronic is a leading maker of silicon wafers used in products such as smartphones, computers, navigation and digital displays.
It has production sites and offices in Germany, the US and other advanced manufacturing countries.
Nomura Holdings Inc advised GlobalWafers on the deal, while Credit Suisse Group AG worked with Siltronic.
DAMAGE REPORT: Global central banks are assessing war-driven inflation risks as the law of unintended consequences careens around the world, spiking oil prices Central banks from Washington to London and from Jakarta to Taipei are about to make their first assessments of economic damage after more than two weeks of conflict between the US and Iran. Decisions this week encompassing every member of the G7 and eight of the world’s 10 most-traded currency jurisdictions are likely to confirm to investors that the specter of a new inflation shock is already worrying enough to prompt heightened caution. The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to do exactly what everyone anticipated weeks ahead of its March 17-18 policy gathering: hold rates steady. The narrative surrounding that
PRICE HIKES: The war in the Middle East would not significantly disrupt supply in the short term, but semiconductor companies are facing price surges for materials Taiwan’s semiconductor companies are not facing imminent supply disruptions of essential chemicals or raw materials due to the war in the Middle East, but surges in material costs loom large, industry association SEMI Taiwan said yesterday. The association’s comments came amid growing concerns that supplies of helium and other key raw materials used in semiconductor production could become a choke point after Qatar shut down its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and helium output earlier this month due to the conflict. Qatar is the second-largest LNG supplier in the world and accounts for about 33 percent of global helium output. Helium is
About 1,000 participants, including more than 200 venture capitalists, joined the Taiwan Demo Day in Silicon Valley on Saturday, the largest iteration to date of the event held ahead of Nvidia Corp’s annual GPU Technology Conference which runs from today to Thursday. Taiwan Demo Day, co-organized by the Taiwan Next Foundation and the Startup Island Taiwan Silicon Valley Hub, took place at the Computer History Museum in California, showcasing 12 teams focused on physical artificial intelligence (AI) and agentic AI technologies. Katie Hsieh (謝凱婷), founder of the Taiwan Next Foundation, said the event highlighted the strength of the Taiwan-US start-up ecosystem, with
DOMESTIC COMPONENT: Huang identified several Taiwanese partners to be a key part of Nvidia’s Vera Rubin supply chain, including Asustek, Hon Hai and Wistron Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), addressing crowds at the company’s biggest annual event, unveiled a variety of new products while predicting that its flagship artificial intelligence (AI) processors would help generate US$1 trillion in sales through next year. During a two-and-a-half-hour keynote address, Huang announced plans to push deeper into central processing units (CPUs) — Intel Corp’s home turf — and introduced semiconductors made with technology acquired from start-up Groq Inc. The company even said it was developing chips for data centers in outer space. At the heart of Huang’s speech was the message that demand for computing power
RSS