Tsinghua Unigroup scraps plan to acquire stake in Taiwan's ChipMOS

Instead, ChipMOS' board had approved plans to sell a 54.98% stake in its wholly-owned Chinese driver IC manufacturing unit - ChipMOS Technologies Shanghai - for $77 million to a consortium led by Unigroup. After the transaction, Unigroup will hold a 48% interest in the joint venture, while other strategic investors, including an investment vehicle held by ChipMOS Shanghai's employees, will own 6.98%, a statement said.

Unigroup announced a year ago that it would acquire a 25% stake in ChipMOS for NT$11.97 billion ($373 million), in conjunction with its bids to purchase shares of Taiwan's Powertech Technology and Siliconware Precision Industries. S.J. Cheng, ChipMOS' chairman, told a local media that there was little chance of the deal being approved by Taiwan's regulators, but the company doesn't want to delay expansion in China.

Proceeds from the sale of ChipMOS Shanghai shares will be used to expand production capacity in the business unit as part of a three-year growth plan.

"The joint venture will allow us accelerate the planned expansion of ChipMOS Shanghai, while adding on new lines to given the higher demand we are seeing for our LCD driver ICs, touch driver, AMOLED, OLED and memory testing, assembly and bumping services," Cheng said in the statement.

Unigroup is primarily responsible for executing China's strategy to carve out a meaningful market share in global semiconductor manufacturing. In addition to the US, Taiwan is an attractive place for the Chinese company to look for investment targets, although it faces tough regulatory scrutiny. 

Earlier this year, Unigroup scrapped its plan to invest in US-based disk drive manufacturer Western Digital after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) decided to investigate the deal.

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• Taiwan (China)
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