Formosa Heirs Drop Off Taiwan's 50 Richest List Amid Global Chemical Sector Downturn
This story is part of Forbes' coverage of Taiwan's Richest 2025. See the full list here.
With Taiwan's chemicals sector battling headwinds, brothers William and Wilfred Wang, who draw their wealth from Formosa Plastics Group and first appeared in the ranks of Taiwan's richest in 2018, are among the four dropoffs this year.
ss
Shares of group flagship, Formosa Plastics Corp., which reported a NT$1.2 billion ($40 million) net loss in 2024, its first in decades, plunged nearly 50% from a year ago. Other major listed units, Formosa Chemicals and Fibre, Formosa Petrochemical and Nan Ya Plastics, also saw their shares slide.
One of the world's largest producers of plastics and petrochemicals, Formosa has been buffeted by slowing global demand and oversupply from mainland China. Unlike its mainland rivals, the group is also hamstrung by its reliance on imported raw materials, says Michelle Cheng, an associate at Taipei-based MasterLink Securities Investment Advisory. She adds that Formosa's carbon-neutrality transformation has also been lagging. Looking ahead, she says, the export-led group will have to navigate increasing trade protectionism in mainland China and the U.S., two of its main markets.
Cofounded by their late father and headed by William since 2006, Formosa Plastics Group has been trying to weather the storm by expanding in India, Southeast Asia and other markets and also by developing more value-added products. In the past few years, the brothers have stepped away from day-to-day management, handing it over to professionals.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Tencent's Comeback? Analysts Just Raised the Roof on This Stock
Tencent (TCEHY) just reminded investors it's still a force to be reckoned with. After posting a 15% year-over-year revenue jump to 184.5 billion yuan ($25.7 billion) in Q2beating expectationsanalysts wasted no time recalibrating their outlook. The stock's consensus target price has now surged over 5% to HK$688, its second-biggest upward revision in five years. With Tencent closing at HK$594.50 on Friday, that new target implies nearly 16% upside over the next 12 months. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 5 Warning Sign with VWAGY. The earnings beat wasn't a one-trick pony. Tencent showed double-digit growth across multiple business lines, especially in advertising, where AI enhancements are starting to pay off. This wasn't lost on analystsat least 16 of them now expect the stock to break past its 2021 peak, a level it hasn't touched since China's sweeping tech crackdown began. The bullish case? Tencent is no longer just playing defenseit's quietly building momentum again. One potential catalyst is set to drop next Tuesday: the mobile release of Valorant, a blockbuster title that could juice gaming revenue in the second half of the year. Combine that with Tencent's rebound narrative, AI tailwinds, and improved execution, and this could be the beginning of a new uptrend. It's not confirmed yetbut the signals are getting harder to ignore. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Singapore transport operator ComfortDelGro now generates more revenue from overseas than its home base
ComfortDelGro's moves around the world are finally helping its balance sheet. The Singapore MRT operator reported Wednesday that overseas revenue made up 54.3% of its 2.42 billion Singapore dollars ($1.89 billion) in revenue for the first half of the year. It's the first time that the company has generated more revenue from outside Singapore, its home base. Overall, the company's half-year revenue rose by 14.4% year on year. Profits after tax and minority interests climbed 11.2% over the same period to reach 106 million Singapore dollars ($82.8 million). 'The increase in overseas earnings reflects our focus on pursuing profitable international growth. The international public transport business continues to do well, underpinned by our ability to collaborate effectively with our clients to deliver valued services to support their transport goals,' said CEO Cheng Siak Kian. The company's shares fell by 3.2% in Singapore trading on Thursday. ComfortDelGro, ranked No. 105 on the Fortune Southeast Asia 500, is trying to expand its overseas operations, particularly in rail. Singapore's size means transport operators like ComfortDelGro are inclined to look overseas for growth. The company is a relatively late entrant to the business of public rail, particularly compared with giants like Hong Kong's MTR Corp. and Japan's JR Group. Yet it's recently won contracts to operate Stockholm's metro and parts of the Paris metro. ComfortDelGro currently operates two rail lines in Singapore and rail services in Auckland, New Zealand. The group is also part of a consortium that's bidding to operate and maintain the metro lines in Melbourne. In addition to rail, ComfortDelGro operates bus and taxi services in the U.K., Australia, and Singapore, and taxi and private-hire services in China. ComfortDelGro's AI investments In March, ComfortDelGro announced a partnership with Chinese robotaxi startup to launch self-driving cars in Guangzhou. On Wednesday, Cheng, ComfortDelGro's CEO, said the trial has been accident-free so far. ComfortDelGro currently has five autonomous cars operating in a specific part of the city. Cheng said the company is searching for opportunities to 'scale up,' yet declined to give a timeline on when the company will bring robotaxis to Singapore, citing a need to work with authorities. ComfortDelGro's CEO has previously argued that autonomous driving is needed to prepare cities for coming labor shortages. ComfortDelGro is also partnering with MooVita, a Singapore company, for autonomous bus services in the city-state. Cheng is part of a 17-member committee under Singapore's Ministry of Transport tasked with guiding the rollout of autonomous vehicles in the city-state. He's joined on the committee by Grab chief operating officer Alex Hungate, WeRide founder Tony Han, and Waymo's head of international policy, George Ivanov. This story was originally featured on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
What Are the 2 Top Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks to Buy Right Now?
Key Points Spending on AI hardware and devices is on pace to jump impressively in 2025, which explains why Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing is growing sales at a healthy pace. An acceleration in AI software and services spending has led to an improvement in the growth rate of cloud communications specialist Twilio. 10 stocks we like better than Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing › A lot of money is being spent on artificial intelligence (AI) hardware and software now as organizations and governments across the globe look to benefit from the efficiency and productivity gains that this technology can deliver. Market research firm Gartner expects spending on generative AI will jump by 76% in 2025 to a whopping $644 billion. That's why it is a good time to take a closer look at two names that are benefiting from the rapid growth in AI spending in different areas. These companies are already delivering healthy growth and are trading at attractive valuations, so buying them right now could be a smart move. 1. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE: TSM) is right in the middle of the AI revolution as it fabricates the high-end chips that go into devices ranging from data centers to smartphones to personal computers to cars. It's the largest third-party chip foundry in the world by far. Gartner points out that 80% of generative AI spending this year will be on hardware products, including both devices and servers. TSMC is already benefiting from this opportunity. The foundry giant's revenue in the first seven months of 2025 increased by 38% year over year. That impressive growth can be attributed to robust chip demand from top customers such as Nvidia, Apple, AMD, and Broadcom. The strong end-market demand led TSMC to increase its 2025 revenue growth guidance to 30% from its earlier expectation of growth in the mid-20% range. However, don't be surprised to see the Taiwan-based company exceeding even that upgraded target thanks to its AI-related catalysts. For instance, Counterpoint Research is expecting a 68% spike in sales of generative AI-capable smartphones in 2025. Apple, which is one of TSMC's largest customers, reported a 13.5% jump in its iPhone revenue in its most recently reported fiscal quarter. Importantly, Apple is expecting sales growth in the mid to high single-digit percentages in the current quarter, suggesting that it could witness another period of robust iPhone sales ahead of the holiday season. Moreover, TSMC's relationship with smartphone processor giant Qualcomm should pave the way for the company to grow its footprint in the smartphone market. On the other hand, TSMC's relationships with the leading AI chip designers and its focus on expanding its manufacturing capacity to serve this fast-growing market will set the stage for further healthy sales growth. The diversity of its customer base helps explain why the foundry's revenue is anticipated to increase at healthy double-digit percentages over the next couple of years as well. However, TSMC could end up doing better than that over the long run thanks to its improving share of the Foundry 2.0 market, which is expected to generate $298 billion in revenue this year. IDC expects Foundry 2.0 to grow at an annualized rate of 10% through 2029, and TSMC has been able to expand its market share in the space thanks to its focus on advanced chip packaging. As such, TSMC seems capable of outperforming expectations in the long run, and that's why buying the stock while it is trading at an attractive 24 times forward earnings (a discount to the tech-laden Nasdaq-100 index's multiple of 30) looks like the right thing to do. 2. Twilio Spending on generative AI services and software is also taking off as organizations and people adopt more applications to automate processes and increase productivity. According to estimates from Gartner, in 2025, total spending on AI services and software could jump by 119% to almost $65 billion. Twilio (NYSE: TWLO), a cloud communications specialist, is witnessing a healthy acceleration in growth thanks to the adoption of AI tools in its industry. Twilio's application programming interfaces (APIs) enable its clients to stay in touch with their customers through multiple channels such as text, voice, email, chat, and video. The company offers AI tools that allow its clients to build voice AI solutions such as AI agents to elevate the customer service experience, along with AI-powered marketing tools to improve conversion. The company's AI tools are helping it close bigger deals with customers. Twilio says that it saw a 57% year-over-year increase in the number of communications deals valued at $500,000 or more in the second quarter of 2025. The company's active customer accounts increased by 10% from the year-ago period, compared to a 4% increase in the same period last year. Spending by Twilio's established customers improved as well. This is evident from an increase of 5 percentage points in its dollar-based net expansion rate to 108%. (That metric compares the spending of active customers in a quarter to the same cohort's spending in the year-ago period.) Not surprisingly, Twilio has increased its organic revenue growth estimate for 2025 by 1.5 percentage points. It could, however, end up doing better than that thanks to its accelerating customer base growth as well as the cross-selling opportunities that its AI solutions are creating. Analysts covering the company are encouraged by its improving growth profile, and have raised their expectations for it. Finally, this cloud stock is trading at just 3 times sales, a slight discount to the S&P 500's sales multiple. Investors, therefore, can get a good deal on an AI stock that seems capable of flying higher in the long run. Should you buy stock in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing right now? Before you buy stock in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $663,630!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,115,695!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,071% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 185% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of August 13, 2025 Harsh Chauhan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Apple, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, and Twilio. The Motley Fool recommends Broadcom and Gartner. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. What Are the 2 Top Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks to Buy Right Now? was originally published by The Motley Fool Sign in to access your portfolio
