Daily Brief TMT/Internet: Gree Inc, United Microelectron Sp Adr, Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC) – ADR, NVIDIA Corp, Delta Electronics Thailand , Vection Technologies Ltd, Soluna Holdings and more

• Today after the close, KDDI Corp (9433 JP) and Gree Inc (3632 JP) announced that KDDI would offer its 8,000,000 shares in Gree in an international offering through Mizuho Intl.
• The deal comes at a decently large discount and the stock is quite downtrodden. Especially when compared to its venture assets and cash, assuming invested amount is remotely viable.
• The problem is that too much of revenue isn’t earning much, so this sits in a Value Trap category. Shareholder structure makes it difficult to do buybacks.

• UMC spoke at an investment bank’s recent conference, providing additional color on guidance and its collaboration with Intel for 12nm chip production.
• UMC comments imply the key synergies between the two companies, whereby each can solve the other’s key problem,
• While UMC most likely needs to remain a “Taiwanese company” in terms of optics given its history, Intel’s synergies with UMC establishes acquisition-value support for UMC shares in our view.

• Key Events: 1) Nvidia Results Coming Today in the U.S. 2) Elan & ChipMOS Tomorrow in Taiwan 3) U.S. PC Maker Results Next Week
• Why United Microelectronics Is Becoming a Great Long-Term Acquisition Target for Intel 
• Novatek a Top Gainer After Reports of Alliance with ARM to Build Neoverse V2 for AI

• Post 35% price gain in a quarter, many good news we expected and other analysts expected already factored into the share price. We believe the risk/reward not attractive here.
• TSMC guides stronger 1Q24 and 2024, helped by Nvidia and copy cat AI GPU/ASIC orders. We see greater opportunities for alternative copy cat solutions like AMD and Alchip.
• We attribute Nvidia customers’ sales discrepancy to AI server is cannibalizing non-AI server and Nvidia is allocating more GPUs to premium price paying customers in 1H24 and reverse in 2H24.

• Delta Electronics Thailand (DELTA TB) still trades at a higher market cap than Delta Electronics (2308 TT) though the gap has been narrowing over the last few months.
• Delta Electronics Thailand (DELTA TB)‘s real float is around 18% and foreign investors hold 94.07% of the shares outstanding.
• Delta Electronics Thailand (DELTA TB) has traded weak following the placement in October and there could be further downside versus Delta Electronics (2308 TT). 

Vection Technologies secured multiple contracts in February, generating total contract value (TCV) of A$5.8m, with management expecting to recognise the associated revenue and cash across H224. Year to date, the group has delivered more than A$22.5m in TCV, c 80% of FY23 TCV, underpinning growth momentum in FY24. The most substantial contract, valued at A$4.9m, was won with an existing customer in the defence sector, Vection’s second-largest vertical, showing that management is delivering on its upsell strategy. The other contracts spanned healthcare, retail and real estate, reflecting growing demand for extended/virtual reality technologies across a myriad of commercial applications.

• Announces hosting agreement with GPU startup for AI computing.
• Soluna announced a co-location agreement with an AI-focused GPU startup that will locate its GPU units in Soluna’s existing modular data center at the 25MW Project Sophie in Kentucky.
• New contract is another milestone in the company’s growth into AI.