“Supply chain efficiency is more and more important to big global companies,” says billionaire chairman Pierre Chen
THe Yageo Group company logo is seen displayed on a smartphone screen. Taiwan -headquartered Yageo, one of the world’s largest makers of electronics components, remains on the hunt for investments and acquisitions of other manufacturers following two purchases welcomed by stock investors this year, the company’s chairman and founder Pierre Chen said in a recent interview.
“Supply chain efficiency is more and more important to big global companies,” Chen said at the Yageo Foundation headquarters in Taipei. “Our strategy will continue to enhance our solution to serve to our global customers,” Chen said. One path will be organic expansion, while a second is “through acquisition” for technology or products in demand yet whose in-house development would take a long time, Chen added. Yageo’s stock has roared ahead by nearly 80% over the past year after it finalized the purchase in October of 87% of Shibaura Electronics, a Tokyo-listed global leader in temperature sensor technology and manufacturing. Yageo, whose customers include Apple, in September announced plans to purchase up to a 28% stake in Anpec Electronics, a Taiwan designer of power semiconductor chips. The big rise in Yageo’s shares has lifted its stock market capitalization to NT$489 billion, or more than $15 billion, and Chen’s fortune to $8.9 billion, according to a Forbes estimate that also includes his art collection. Yageo’s approach been “a great strategy because they're making some of these acquisitions at exactly the right time,” given strong AI-related demand for electronics components, said Dan Nystedt, vice president at family office investment firm Tri-Orient Investments in Taipei.Yageo’s latest investments are part of a long-term Chen acquisition strategy that has helped to turned the company – founded in 1977 as a maker of resistors – into a one-stop provider of components ranging from capacitors to sensors manufactured at its network of 66 factories globally. Among its purchases, Yageo in 2023 bought the Telemecanique Sensors business from France’s Schneider Electric for the equivalent of $788 million. In 2020, it paid $1.6 billion to acquire U.S. electronics components maker Kemet, gaining customers from “high-end applications,” especially in the auto industry. In 2019, it spent $740 million for U.S. electronics maker Pulse, which specializes in design-in and customized magnetics products. Taiwan companies have done relatively well with Japanese investments, Nystedt noted. “The Taiwanese have been very fortunate with their Japan M&A. Japan’s not an easy place to do an M&A,” he said. Earlier Taiwan investments in Japan include by Apple supplier Hon Hai Precision’s purchase of a majority stake in Sharp in 2016. For its part, Yageo was upbeat about the current business environment it its latest quarterly financial report in October. Yageo called customer inventory levels “healthy” despite geopolitical uncertainties, and noted that “demand for A.I.-related products continues to grow.” Sales rose by 5.8% in the first nine months of 2025 from a year earlier to NT$96.6 billion while net profit climbed by nearly 8% to NT$16.8 billion. Yageo is well-situated in Taiwan, one of the world’s busiest tech hubs and home to chip giant TSMC. Booming demand for state-of-the-art AI chips helped GDP rise by more than 8% in the third quarter from a year ago – its best showing in 15 years. Major Taiwan customers include Nvidia. Yageo’s new Japanese acquisition won support from regulators who see the benefits when overseas investors help unlock company value, Chen said. Yageo’s investment also won the support of a Shibaura’s leadership team eyeing the synergies with its Taiwan partner’s global distribution network, he said. Whereas many electronics firms in Japan make a single component for a Japanese customer, Yageo’s large global distribution channels “can help them to approach many customers they never touched before. This is a win-win situation,” he said. “If we can find a good product or good technology, we can enhance our strategy” of building on its one-stop approach with other investments or acquisitions, Chen said. “We will consider the U.S. and Europe,” as well as Japan, he said. Strong demand for components beyond AI businesses could help pricing at Yageo and other industry suppliers even more next year, Tri-Orient’s Nystedt said. “It’s simply a matter you just have so much being built. A lucky thing that the AI data center trend had going for it from 2023 was most of the electronics industry back then was kind of dead. And 2024, it hadn’t really picked up a whole lot” due to anemic smartphone and PC industry growth.” “If we had a strong PC upgrade cycle or a strong smartphone upgrade cycle, you would have a lot more trouble finding certain capacitors and other parts. It is all going into data centers right now,” Nystedt said. “Anybody who’s selling parts will give it to them first. Nobody else is paying as much money as they are.”
Schneider Electric Sharp Hon Hai Precision TSMC Taiwan Kemet Apple Nvidia Pierre Chen
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