Chunghwa Picture Tubes shares soar

Chunghwa Picture Tube shares closed at NT$4.27, up NT$0.24, or 5.96 percent. The stock's rise was in stark contrast with the movement of other TFT-LCD stocks such as AU Optronics and Chi Mei Optoelectronics, which decreased by 1.16 percent and closed flat, respectively.

Chunghwa announced yesterday morning its parent corporation, Tatung, sold 260,000 units of Chunghwa stock to Credit Suisse through its reinvestment firm, Chunghwa IT Investment. Each stock unit is 1,000 shares.

However, word circulating in the market indicated that the real buyer was Samsung, one of the flat panel heavyweights the financially troubled Chunghwa Picture Tubes reportedly wants to merge itself into.

Both Chunghwa Picture Tubes and Samsung denied the rumor. Samsung said at this point, it does not have any plans to invest in other TFT-LCD firms.

Chunghwa Picture Tubes, meanwhile, said Credit Suisse's purchase of its stock was just a simple financial transaction and had nothing to do with any merger or acquisition deals.

Chunghwa Picture Tubes had third quarter consolidated revenue of NT$19.249 billion, translating into a net loss of NT$4.823 billion, or loss per share of NT$0.35. The loss had to do with low capacity utilization during the quarter and put the company as the only TFT-CD maker that failed to turn profitable in the quarter.

The firm is estimated to have made NT$17.172 billion in sales for the fourth quarter, a quarter-over-quarter decline of 10.77 percent and year-over-year decline of 3.6 percent, the Economic Daily reported, yesterday.

Subscribe to The China Post and save 25%. Click here

PrintEmail

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos
 Respond to this email