Merrill denies issuing TSMC warrants
( 2001-08-24 10:58) (7)
Merrill Lynch on Thursday denied market rumours that it was planning to issue warrants on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world's largest contract chipmaker.
"Contrary to market rumour, Merrill Lynch has not issued a warrant on TSMC shares," Brent Clapacs, managing director of global equity-linked products in Asia, said.
"In fact, if we had launched a warrant, we would be purchasing the underlying shares, but we have not done so," he said.
"Merrill Lynch are not issuing a warrant on TSMC," he said.
TSMC's American Depositary Receipts plunged 10.79 per cent on Wall Street overnight and its Taipei listed shares fell the daily seven per cent limit on Wednesday because of talk Merrill had issued warrants, analysts said.
Taipei's Economic Daily News on Thursday quoted unidentified sources as saying Merrill Lynch still plans to issue warrants for TSMC. The Daily News said such an issue would dampen its ADR prices.
After Merrill's denial, TSMC came off an intraday low of NT$60 to closed unchanged on Thursday at NT$62.00, compared with a 0.62 per cent fall in the benchmark TAIEX index.
While TSMC declined to comment on rumours of the warrant, company spokeswoman K C Chen issued an official statement saying the company had not changed its forecasts since its last investor conference on July 26.
"We still expect to see third-quarter operating performance improve over last quarter," Chen said.
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