An Empirical Study of Value Creation Drivers in Semiconductor Foundry Industry

• Main Authors: Chiang, Chieh Kuan, 江玠寬
• Other Authors: Chen, Wei Kuang
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/gy25e2

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 金融研究所 === 101 === Advanced semiconductor manufacturing is at an inflection point with escalating R&;D intensity and capital expenditure requirements for new fabrication plants of leading process. However, investors are concerned whether tremendous capital expenditure could generate return and create value to the company in this competition. Therefore, the objective of this study is to examine the foundry firms’ value by adopting the concept of Economic Value Added (EVA), measuring the excessive return that a company can generate over the cost of capital. At first, this study tests the power of EVA to capture the relationship between a company’s market value and EVA of foundries. As EVA may be affected by numerous financial value drivers, this research examines and ascertains which factors are relevant. Furthermore, this study also monitors the EVA of these firms to determine their relationship with the semiconductor cyclical index. The primary findings of this study are illustrated as below. EVA is systematically linked to market value in foundry industry. In addition, foundries with higher operating profit margin and higher capital expenditure could create more firms’ value while foundries with higher cost of capital and financial flexibility would destroy its value. Moreover, foundries’ EVAs are not been significantly affected by growth of sales, investments in working capital, and semiconductor cycle index. Furthermore, this paper also conducts a case study to analyze why TSMC creates EVA continuously: (1)TSMC increases returns on existing capital while holding WACC and invested capital constant. (2)TSMC reduces the cost of capital by leveraging low interest rate and low beta. (3)TSMC makes new investments that earn returns greater than the WACC. (4)TSMC sustains the competitive advantage of technological leadership which enables the company to generate above-normal returns for a longer period.