This article only represents the author's own views.
A decade ago, former Tsinghua Unigroup Chairman Zhao Weiguo sent shockwaves through the Greater China semiconductor community when he vowed to buy TSMC and MediaTek, two of Taiwan’s leading players in the sector. Those were heady days when Unigroup was a Chinese sensation seen as one of its best hopes to compete with some of the biggest players across the Taiwan Strait and around the world.
Fast forward to the present, when Zhao is serving a prison sentence for corruption, while his scandal-plagued Unigroup has only recently emerged from a bankruptcy restructuring. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the new company is now setting its sights on a return to the global capital market with a plan to list its flagship asset, Unisplendour Corp. Ltd. (000938.SZ) in Hong Kong.