Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Yageo Corp (國巨) yesterday said that they plan to acquire a 30 percent stake in local semiconductor manufacturer Advanced Power Electronics Corp (APEC, 富鼎) for about NT$2.89 billion (US$97.45 million) through a joint venture, their latest effort to broaden their semiconductor portfolios.
The joint venture, XSemi Corp (國創半導體), has offered to buy 35 million Advanced Power Electronics shares at NT$82.58 per share, statements filed by the companies to the Taiwan Stock Exchange showed.
That represented a discount of 26.68 percent compared with Advanced Power Electronics’ closing price of NT$112.5 yesterday.
Photo: Fang Wei-chieh, Taipei Times
Advanced Power Electronics is one of the nation’s biggest makers of metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFET), a device that is widely used for switching and to amplify electronic signals.
The company has developed a comprehensive product lineup with more than 1,000 MOSFET products on offer, it said.
Hsinchu-based XSemi is a chip designer that specializes in analogue and power semiconductors primarily used in automotive and industrial devices.
The collaboration would help XSemi expedite its business development process, and improve its product portfolio and customer reach, especially with more business opportunities emerging, such as electric vehicles, digital healthcare and robotics, the statement said.
“APEC’s products will also complement highly with XSemi’s internally developed power management ICs, silicon carbide chips and modules as total solutions to provide to Hon Hai and Yageo’s existing and future customers,” the statement said.
Hon Hai is a major iPhone assembler, while Yageo is the world’s No. 3 supplier of passive components.
“Semiconductors have been one of the three key technology pillars of Hon Hai,” said Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉), who is also chairman of XSemi.
“On top of XSemi’s participation through its analogue and power products on the auto collaborations, its power module has also shown great progress,” Liu said in the statement. “With the private placement of APEC, XSemi will be able to fill the gap in its low to high-voltage silicon MOSFET product line, and this will provide steady semiconductor supply for the two groups’ future strategic focus in industrial and automotive.”
Hon Hai said it has injected an additional NT$1.599 billion in XSemi by subscribing to new shares issued by the semiconductor company, boosting Hon Hai’s stake to 51 percent.
Yageo would hold a 49 percent stake of the joint venture with new investments of NT$1.5 billion through its subsidiaries.
“Our alliance with APEC is to capture the upcoming opportunities in analogue and power semiconductors,” Yageo chairman Pierre Chen (陳泰銘) said in the statement. “Once the products are ready, we believe that we can quickly deliver them to the customers through Yageo’s extensive global channels.”
HANDOVER POLICY: Approving the probe means that the new US administration of Donald Trump is likely to have the option to impose trade restrictions on China US President Joe Biden’s administration is set to initiate a trade investigation into Chinese semiconductors in the coming days as part of a push to reduce reliance on a technology that US officials believe poses national security risks. The probe could result in tariffs or other measures to restrict imports on older-model semiconductors and the products containing them, including medical devices, vehicles, smartphones and weaponry, people familiar with the matter said. The investigation examining so-called foundational chips could take months to conclude, meaning that any reaction to the findings would be left to the discretion of US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming team. Biden
INVESTMENT: Jun Seki, chief strategy officer for Hon Hai’s EV arm, and his team are currently in talks in France with Renault, Nissan’s 36 percent shareholder Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the iPhone maker known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) internationally, is in talks with Nissan Motor Co’s biggest shareholder Renault SA about its willingness to sell its shares in the Japanese automaker, the Central News Agency (CNA) said, citing people it did not identify. Nissan and fellow Japanese automaker, Honda Motor Co, are exploring a merger that would create a rival to Toyota Motor Corp in Japan and better position the combined company to face competitive challenges around the world, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. However, one potential spanner in the works is
HON HAI LURKS: The ‘Nikkei’ reported that Foxconn’s interest in Nissan accelerated the Honda-merger effort out of fears it might be taken over by the Taiwanese firm Nissan Motor Co has become the latest buyout target in Japan as it explores a merger with Honda Motor Co and faces an overture from Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) internationally. Shares in Nissan yesterday jumped 24 percent, the most on record, to hit the daily limit, after the two Japanese automakers acknowledged that talks are ongoing to better position themselves for competitive challenges during a time of upheaval in the global auto industry. Foxconn — a Taipei-based manufacturer of iPhones, which has been investing heavily in factories to build electric vehicles — has also
CHIP SUBSIDY: The US funding would help alleviate the financial pressure from building two fabs in the US and should lift gross margins in 2026, the company said GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s third-largest silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said it is to receive US$406 million in subsidies from the US Department of Commerce for two new US fabs under the CHIPS and Science Act, with the first batch of the funds likely coming next year. The grant represents 10 percent of the planned investments of US$4 billion in advanced semiconductor wafer manufacturing facilities in Texas and Missouri, GlobalWafers said. The commerce department is to disburse the funds based on the completion of project milestones over a multiyear timeframe, the company said. Along with the tax credit, which is equal to
RSS