Twenty-seven firms launched initial public offerings (IPO) in the first six months of this year, raising a combined NT$28.85 billion (US$970.53 million), a significant advance from 14 deals amassing NT$14 billion in the same period last year, Ernst & Young Taiwan said yesterday.
The pickup was linked to easing COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and came even though the TAIEX has had a rough time due to selling among foreign portfolio managers to cope with global monetary tightening, Ernst & Young said.
Technology and biotechnology firms were among the debuts, as Taiwan is home to the world’s largest electronics suppliers and the government is shoring up the biotechnology industry, the consultancy said.
Image sensor provider VisEra Technologies Co (采鈺), a spinoff of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) that had its debut yesterday, topped the survey of newly listed Taiwan Stock Exchange firms by raising NT$6.74 billion, or 29.31 percent of the total, it said.
VisEra shares yesterday closed at NT$334, a 15.17 percent rise, bucking the TAIEX’s 2.72 percent fall.
UPI Semiconductor Corp (力智科技), which provides high power density semiconductor solutions, was second on the list with a 22.8 percent share of the total, Ernst & Young said.
Technology firms accounted for 33 percent of new players on the Taipei Exchange, the local bourse for companies with small or medium capitalizations, it said.
Ernst & Young said that it remains guardedly optimistic about the IPO market, with the TAIEX likely to consolidate at about 15,000 points in the near term amid turbid economic times.
Nearly 30 companies have debuted on the Taipei Exchange since the start of last month, led by biotechnology players, despite a local outbreak of COVID-19, Ernst & Young said, adding that favorable legislation last year would support the development and operations of such firms.
Meta Platforms Inc offered US$100 million bonuses to OpenAI employees in an unsuccessful bid to poach the ChatGPT maker’s talent and strengthen its own generative artificial intelligence (AI) teams, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said. Facebook’s parent company — a competitor of OpenAI — also offered “giant” annual salaries exceeding US$100 million to OpenAI staffers, Altman said in an interview on the Uncapped with Jack Altman podcast released on Tuesday. “It is crazy,” Sam Altman told his brother Jack in the interview. “I’m really happy that at least so far none of our best people have decided to take them
BYPASSING CHINA TARIFFS: In the first five months of this year, Foxconn sent US$4.4bn of iPhones to the US from India, compared with US$3.7bn in the whole of last year Nearly all the iPhones exported by Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) from India went to the US between March and last month, customs data showed, far above last year’s average of 50 percent and a clear sign of Apple Inc’s efforts to bypass high US tariffs imposed on China. The numbers, being reported by Reuters for the first time, show that Apple has realigned its India exports to almost exclusively serve the US market, when previously the devices were more widely distributed to nations including the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. During March to last month, Foxconn, known as Hon Hai Precision Industry
PLANS: MSI is also planning to upgrade its service center in the Netherlands Micro-Star International Co (MSI, 微星) yesterday said it plans to set up a server assembly line at its Poland service center this year at the earliest. The computer and peripherals manufacturer expects that the new server assembly line would shorten transportation times in shipments to European countries, a company spokesperson told the Taipei Times by telephone. MSI manufactures motherboards, graphics cards, notebook computers, servers, optical storage devices and communication devices. The company operates plants in Taiwan and China, and runs a global network of service centers. The company is also considering upgrading its service center in the Netherlands into a
Taiwan’s property market is entering a freeze, with mortgage activity across the nation’s six largest cities plummeting in the first quarter, H&B Realty Co (住商不動產) said yesterday, citing mounting pressure on housing demand amid tighter lending rules and regulatory curbs. Mortgage applications in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung totaled 28,078 from January to March, a sharp 36.3 percent decline from 44,082 in the same period last year, the nation’s largest real-estate brokerage by franchise said, citing data from the Joint Credit Information Center (JCIC, 聯徵中心). “The simultaneous decline across all six cities reflects just how drastically the market
RSS