Royal Philips Electronics today announced that, market conditions permitting, it plans to sell up to the maximum number of common shares in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd., as are repurchased by TSMC in a share repurchase program as announced by TSMC.

This TSMC share repurchase program is the third step in the 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. Today, TSMC has announced it plans to execute this share buyback program via open market transactions on the Taiwan Stock Exchange up to USD 1.5 billion worth of shares.

Currently, Philips holds approximately 2.1 billion TSMC shares representing approximately 8 percent of TSMC's issued shares. This total stake is worth approximately USD 4.0 billion at current market prices of TSMC shares.