Acer Group Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Stan Shih in a speech here Monday urged foreign investors to take a long-term view of Acer Inc., the group's core PC making company that recently has seen its stock price plunge to less than half of its year-to-date high.
Addressing foreign investors at the Made in Taiwan conference, hosted by Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia, Shih pleaded with foreign investors to consider both the company's long-term investments, as well as its core PC business, when evaluating the stock.
"By mid-September, Acer Inc.'s market value was US$4.34 billion, of which the companies we have invested in accounted for $3.8 billion. If you deduct the investment share, it leaves only $547 million and seriously undervalues Acer Inc.'s true market value," Shih said, according to a statement issued by Acer.
Shih also claimed that the company's core PC business is underrated. For the period from January to August, Acer's notebook business has grown at 61 percent year-on-year, while shipments of Acer-branded PCs grew by 27 percent, he said.
In a thinly veiled reference to IBM Corp. bailing out of a major order for consumer desktop PCs, Shih said the sudden order cancellation of one of Acer's OEM (original equipment manufacturer) customers had led to a NT$20 billion (US$639 million) revenue shortfall this year. New OEM partnerships are already under discussion and under way, however, which should show significant return in the company's fourth-quarter results, he added.
At the end of Tuesday's trading on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, Acer Inc. closed at NT$36.50, up NT$1.90 on the day. Although up from a low of NT$32, the price was still less than half of the NT$80 high the stock traded at earlier this year.
Acer, in Taipei, Taiwan, can be reached at +886-2-2696-1234 or via the Web at http://www.acer.com/.