State-owned Tsinghua Unigroup continues investing in overseas companies in a bid to strengthen its presence in the semiconductor industry. (Photo : www.tech01.us)
As part of its bid to build a global chip empire, China's state-owned Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd. is eyeing to buy stakes in two Taiwanese chip-packaging firms, Silicon Precision Industries Co. (SPIL) and ChipMOS Technologies Inc.
The deals with these companies cap a year of Tsinghua's aggressive acquisitions, which have totaled to over $20 billion so far.
These agreements come as the local chip industry aims to reduce its reliance on foreign firms.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Tsinghua announced on Friday its plan to acquire a 24.9-percent stake in SPIL, whose chip technology is widely used in the latest iPhone products of Apple Inc. The Chinese firm is offering 55 New Taiwan (NT) dollars a share, making the offer total at 11.1 billion yuan.
Meanwhile, its plan for ChipMOS is to buy a 25-percent stake for 2.4 billion yuan.
Tsinghua, which has ties with China's premier technological university and senior political leaders, has emerged as the top firm promoting the country's efforts to establish a local chip industry.
In September, the firm agreed to buy a 15-percent stake in U.S. disk drive maker Western Digital Corp. for $3.78 billion. Last month, it struck another deal, paying $600 million for a 25-percent stake in Taiwan's Powertech Technology. Both deals are yet to be granted with regulatory approvals.
In July, it also offered U.S. chipmaker Micron Technology an acquisition deal worth $23 billion. The offer, which could have been the largest Chinese overseas acquisition, fell apart as the prospects of getting U.S. government approval dimmed.
In May, the group also acquired a controlling 51-percent stake in Hewlett-Packard Co.'s China networking unit. The deal was valued at $2.3 billion.
