Philips announces completion of sale of 800 million TSMC shares via TSMC share repurchase program

Philips announces completion of sale of 800 million TSMC shares via TSMC share repurchase program

Royal Philips Electronics (AEX: PHI, NYSE: PHG) today announced it has completed the sale of 800 million common shares in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. (TAIEX: 2330, NYSE: TSM) (“TSMC”), valued at approximately USD 1.5 billion. The sale was carried out as part of a TSMC share repurchase program, which was initiated by TSMC on November 14, 2007 and completed today.

This TSMC share repurchase program is the third step in a multi-phased plan to facilitate an orderly exit by Philips from its shareholding in TSMC, as announced by Philips and TSMC on March 9, 2007. This plan aims to reduce Philips’ holding in TSMC to zero before the end of 2010.

The sale of these shares, closed today, will provide Philips with proceeds of approximately EUR 980 million, and will result in a non-taxable net gain of approximately EUR 530 million in Philips’ financial results for the fourth quarter of 2007. Following completion of this sale, Philips holds approximately 1.3 billion TSMC shares, representing approximately 5.0 percent of TSMC’s issued shares. This total stake is worth approximately EUR 1.7 billion at current market prices for TSMC shares.

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