Miscellaneous News

[iewgnem]

But is this CONTROL permanent, meaning WingTech is forever out of the game without compensation should Beijing not intervene? Or the Dutch simply controls Nexperia, but WingTech could continue to receive revenue and other benefits from Nexperia just short of sitting on the board?

Nexperia is fully Wingtech right now, Wingtech has both wafer and packaging, they're the one shipping to customers and receiving revenue for them. The Dutch is the one that, after their takeover, ceases to receive revenue from the real Nexperia making actual sales.

The Dutch simply giving back shares and Nexperia Europe resuming operations, i.e. going back to before the Dutch move would not be the ideal outcome. Nexperia is in a field that has a lot of fully Chinese competitors, keeping Nexperia's European plants open is a previlage China extended to them, not something in China's interest. After the Dutch move China's goal should be to punish Europe, not to return to the status-quo and let them get away with it, if a thief broke into your house and stole something you planned on throwing out, your goal isn't to get the stuff back but to punish the theif.

IMO the ideal outcome is Nexperia China become/remain as it is currently a fully independent entity, Nexperia Europe gets fully cut off, Wingtech writes off European assets but make up for it by dumping all liabilities, pensions, debts and operating expenses for European plants onto the Dutch taxpayers. All Nexperia business going forward stays within China, European Nexperia dies, Nexperia becomes fully 100% Chinese with no European containmation.

I would also like to see China sanction anyone who tries to buy the stolen assets from the Dutch goverment after they're forced to sell to maximize puinishmnt on the Dutch people.

 

[AndrewS]

Fully depreciated simply mean you can’t charge depreciation expenses against your revenues, an accounting trick only. In reality the costs of the factories are a sunk cost, they have no bearings on the cashflow.

The Shanghai fab is a 12-inch one which means the day-to-day production cost is much lower than the old 6-inch and 8-inch fabs in Europe. The capacity of the Shanghai fab is 2-3x of the entire European operation according to this podcast:

Might as well use this opportunity to get rid of the European operations except sales and support.

Prior to the Dutch seizure of Nexperia, Wingtech fully owned and control the Nexperia fabs.

As such, they would want to run all their fabs at maximum capacity and would factor in depreciation/financing costs.

There was an announcement of a $200 million investment for the Hamburg plant in June 2024

Given that Nexperia only accounts for 5% of the market, there is ample scope for Wingtech/Nexperia to run all their fabs at maximum capacity.

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In terms of the situation now, I think regaining control is still the best option and Wingtech's preferred goal.

But if this doesn't work, then yes, it is best to get rid of the European operations.
However, note that the European plants are likely to still be worth billions in terms of semiconductor equipment

 

[iewgnem]

Why go to all this effort when you can buy off the shelf solutions from AliExpress. At least they can hit more than two targets.

Honestly the article itself is part of the problem with western manufacturing. There's a huge disconnect between their perception of themselves and reality, they perceive themselves as rich countries with technology, but they're actually very poor and has no technology.

There's nothing wrong with being poor and behind, but you have to account for it in your planning, you need to make allowance for failures, be frugal with spending but continue to spend through failures.

But because of their illusion western hardware startups often end up blow their finite investor money on expensive decisions like using local machine shops or expensive domestic parts (which also ironically end up forcing them to use more Chinese parts elsewhere because they ran out of budget). The investors, who share in the delusion, then invariably get surprised at how little they're getting from the amount spent, rather than acknowledge what they're trying to do is difficult for a western company.

And at the end you get articles like this one from FT that calls the program a failure, and while Thiel might stick through, most investors will bail instead of investing the proper amount of money that actually matches the technologically inferior reality of western hardware.

 

[iewgnem]

Prior to the Dutch seizure of Nexperia, Wingtech fully owned and control the Nexperia fabs.

As such, they would want to run all their fabs at maximum capacity and would factor in depreciation/financing costs.

There was an announcement of a $200 million investment for the Hamburg plant in June 2024

Given that Nexperia only accounts for 5% of the market, there is ample scope for Wingtech/Nexperia to run all their fabs at maximum capacity.

---

In terms of the situation now, I think regaining control is still the best option and Wingtech's preferred goal.

But if this doesn't work, then yes, it is best to get rid of the European operations.
However, note that the European plants are likely to still be worth billions in terms of semiconductor equipment

Europeans just made it clear they, like India, consider all money you made there and assets you have there to be theirs regardless of ownership. So just like India, revenue generation from European fabs is actually a liability because you can't actually collect them. Wingtech keeping European fabs just mean Wingtech paying European workers wages, pensions and benefits without actually having real ownership or the ability to retain revenue.

Nexperia Europe need to be killed off to eliminate a non-Chinese competition in semiconductor industry, and the Dutch government need to be prevented from selling stolen assets to punish the Dutch people.

 

[SanWenYu]

I haven't heard Xinjiang "genocide and slave labour" for months or years now ... what happening?

It is still there, in somewhat subtle ways. A couple of weeks ago a forum member posted a YT video link in which an influencer talks about food supply chains in the US and how SYSCO is monopolizing the trade. Half way through the phrase "Uyghur forced labour" slipped out his mouth as if it was a fact. I stopped watching because I cannot take his words seriously anymore.

 

[supercat]

Indian reddit/twitter is so full of self loathing which is one of the reasons why it‘s slow at improving. You have to be optimistic to a certain to be motivated to put the work needed for something.

Maitreya Bhakal, however, is not a random Indian twitter. He is a true intellectual with some deep self-reflections about India.

Here is a comparison of the American and Chinese readouts. I doubt China will fully lift the restrictions on the export of rare earth and the related technology and expertise. It seems China didn't even promise anything about soybeans.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1984427732483399697

 

[Clango]

We had both a german Army Major and lieutenant colonel tell us just two weeks ago, that this company was going to bring the big change to Bundeswehr....

it certainly will, a big part of your budget will be missing

 

[zbb]

The Nexperia’s European physical “assets” are more likely to be liabilities at this point. The factories are old, use old technology with high production cost, high cost labour cost with large potential severance packages. Might as well take the opportunity to peel off the European physical assets.

Just in 2024, Wingtech fully paid off all of Nexperia's debts (inherited from before Wingtech acquisition) and invested $200M into upgrading the Nexperia fab in Germany.

 

[Clango]

Just in 2024, Wingtech fully paid off all of Nexperia's debts (inherited from before Wingtech acquisition) and invested $200M into upgrading the Nexperia fab in Germany.

An unfortunate price to pay to learn what the Europeans are like.

 

[vincent]

Prior to the Dutch seizure of Nexperia, Wingtech fully owned and control the Nexperia fabs.

As such, they would want to run all their fabs at maximum capacity and would factor in depreciation/financing costs.

There was an announcement of a $200 million investment for the Hamburg plant in June 2024

Given that Nexperia only accounts for 5% of the market, there is ample scope for Wingtech/Nexperia to run all their fabs at maximum capacity.

---

In terms of the situation now, I think regaining control is still the best option and Wingtech's preferred goal.

But if this doesn't work, then yes, it is best to get rid of the European operations.
However, note that the European plants are likely to still be worth billions in terms of semiconductor equipment

Wingtech’s Shanghai 12-inch fab is producing 30k wafers a year right now and the planned capacity is 120k. The fab’s planned capacity is 3x of the total European operation. There is no point of keeping the European physical “assets” and their liabilities.

How much of the planned $200M are actually implemented and how much of it actually came from Wingtech and not loans (backed by Nexperia corporate) and subsidies from European banks and governments?