Oct 21, 2020

Taiwan Business Quick Take TAIEX closes slightly higher The TAIEX closed slightly higher yesterday as market sentiment remained cautious over the Nov. 3 US presidential election. Contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) was again the anchor stabilizing the broader market, preventing the main board from falling into negative territory at the end of the session, dealers said. The TAIEX closed up 14.88 points, or 0.12 percent, at 12,877.25, on turnover of NT$167.982 billion (US$5.81 billion). TSMC, the most heavily weighted stock on the local market, rose 0.44 percent after fluctuating between NT$451 and NT$456. The semiconductor subindex and the bellwether electronics sector closed up 0.39 percent and 0.19 percent respectively. Foreign institutional investors sold a net NT$599 million of Taiwanese shares on the main board yesterday, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. ELECTRONICS Alltop approves reduction Alltop Technology Co (凡甲科技), which supplies connectors for electronic devices and cables for servers, yesterday said that its board of directors approved a capital reduction scheme in which the company would cut 25 percent of its capitalization to NT$546.87 million and shareholders would be paid NT$2.5 per share. As the company sees no urgent need for capital for the time being, it expects that the reduction would increase shareholder returns and help it adjust its capital structure, it said. Shareholders are to vote on the scheme at the firm’s annual general meeting on Dec. 10, after which it would need regulatory approval, Alltop said in a filing. The plan should be completed by the first quarter of next year. Alltop reported cumulative revenue of NT$1.6 billion in the first three quarters of this year, up 13.6 percent from a year earlier. INTEGRATED CIRCUITS ALi denies Wi-Fi report Set-top box IC designer ALi Corp (揚智科技) yesterday denied an Economic Daily News report that it is setting up a Wi-Fi 6 team of 20 people with an aim to mass-produce and sell such products from June. ALi said that the report, which helped push its share price up by the daily limit in Taipei trading yesterday, closing at NT$27.2, was speculation among investors and local media. “This is misleading news and sheer fiction. ALi hereby solemnly denies it,” the firm said in a regulatory filing. The company reported cumulative revenue of NT$1.496 billion in the first nine months of this year, up 0.94 percent from a year earlier. In the first half of the year, the company incurred a net loss of NT$98.23 million, compared with a net loss of NT$195.93 million a year earlier. CHIPMAKERS Phison opens US lab Flash memorychip controller supplier Phison Electronics Corp (群聯) yesterday said that it has opened an enterprise solid-state drive (SSD) engineering lab, and set up a systems integration and engineering group (SIE) in Colorado, with an aim to provide real-time technical support and product-related services for enterprise SSD customers and partners in the region. Making its inroad into the enterprise SSD market, Phison said that the SIE is the company’s first in the US. Phison expects the Colorado team, and the research and development lab, to increase their engineering staff numbers in the next few months to meet the increasing demand. The company did not provide specific figures for the US investment. Comments will be moderated. Keep comments relevant to the article. Remarks containing abusive and obscene language, personal attacks of any kind or promotion will be removed and the user banned. Final decision will be at the discretion of the Taipei Times.