TSMC takes over AUO's Taichung plant for NT$38.8 billion

TSMC will acquire a plant in Taichung from display maker AUO Corp. (友達光電) for NT$38.8 billion (about US$1.20 billion), excluding tax. The chipmaker disclosed the deal in a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing on October 29, 2026, and gave the same day as the transaction date. DigiTimes also reported the deal.

The assets are plant buildings, the cleanrooms inside them and the equipment that supports the plant. TSMC gives the purpose as use in its own operations and production. The filing does not name a manufacturing process or a product for the site. It was posted at 14:05 Taipei time, or 15:05 in Seoul.

For investors who hold TSMC from abroad, the filing adds a site where the fab buildings and cleanrooms are already standing to the company’s capacity. The price is small next to what TSMC takes in each month.

Nine buildings in Xitun District

The plant sits in Taichung’s Xitun District and is registered under 9 building numbers, according to the filing. Titled floor area totals 429,030 square meters. That equals about 129,782 ping, the unit Taiwan uses for floor space. The filing puts the usable area higher, at about 166,000 ping.

AUO was not TSMC’s first counterparty in talks over the plant. DigiTimes reported that AUO agreed to the TSMC deal after scrapping an earlier one with Quanta for the same Taichung facility. DigiTimes did not give the terms of the Quanta agreement.

Price set at the higher appraisal

The two companies negotiated the price, the filing says, with market prices and professional appraisals as reference points. Two appraisers valued the assets. One put them at NT$37.3 billion (about US$1.15 billion). The other arrived at NT$38.8 billion. Both figures exclude tax. The agreed price equals the higher of the two valuations.

AUO is not a related party of TSMC, according to the filing. Board approval is listed as not applicable. The deal was instead cleared under TSMC’s internal approval authority, the filing says, and it records that no director objected.

Less than a tenth of a month’s sales

TSMC reported revenue of NT$511.86 billion (about US$15.76 billion) for September 2026 in its monthly revenue report to the exchange. The AUO price comes to less than a tenth of that single month.

The gap is wider against profit. TSMC’s net income for January through June 2026, the two quarters covered by its latest quarterly report, was NT$1,279.58 billion. That is a year-to-date total for the half, not one quarter’s figure.

The Taichung deal is the second capacity story on TSMC that Pacific Tape has covered this month. On October 20, we reported, citing Chosunbiz, that TSMC is adding a 3nm plant in Taiwan; 3nm is a chip generation name, not a measurement. Neither the filing nor DigiTimes ties that plant to the AUO site.

A slide through October

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TSMC shares closed at NT$2,425 on October 28, the session before the filing day. That is about US$74.69 at 32.468 NT dollars per US dollar. The stock gained 1.04% in that session.

The gain came after weeks of losses. From October 5 to October 28, the shares fell 5.83% in NT dollar terms. Measured in US dollars, the drop was 7.45%. The difference reflects the currency: over the same weeks, the NT dollar weakened 1.76%, from 31.907 to 32.468 per US dollar.

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Information only, not investment advice.