Taiwan shares fell on Wednesday, dragged down by heavyweight chip maker United Microelectronics Corp (UMC) after the company said it was considering delisting from the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The main TAIEX share index finished 0.11 percent lower to 6,524.40, after sliding as much as 0.80 percent. Turnover swelled to T$223.88 billion ($6.76 billion) after five after-hours deals boosted trading volume, compared with T$113.2 billion in the previous session. The Taiwan Stock Exchange said in a statement that the surge of trading was mostly because clients of Salomon Smith Barney had bought about 1.92 billion shares of TSMC at a fixed price of T$62.3 per share in one of the deals.
The electronics subindex, one of the biggest decliners, lost 0.22 percent, with United Microelectronics topping the most active list by volume. The possibility of it delisting from Taiwan spooked investors.
United Microelectronics Corp, the world's second-largest contract chip maker, dropped 3.08 percent to T$18.85. Larger rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co was down 0.47 percent. Silicon Integrated Systems Inc, a PC chipset design house related to UMC, also fell 2.41 percent.
United Microelectronics said it was considering delisting from the domestic stock exchange because of penalties and official criticism it had received in Taiwan after restating earnings under US accounting rules. Bucking the declines, some financial shares and Wellypower Optronics rose. Wellypower, a unit of AU Optronics that makes components for flat panel displays, surged 140 percent to T$151 on its first day of trading. Newly listed stocks are not limited by the market's 7 percent daily cap for five sessions of trading.
First Financial Holding Co jumped 1.28 percent after the government won a majority of seats on the company's board on Wednesday. Chinatrust Financial Holding Co was up 0.39 percent after saying it planned to raise T$30 billion through a private placement at T$40 a share. That repersents a 54 percent upside from the closing price of T$25.95.