Lextar, a large LED manufacturing company under the AUO group, has sold one of its factory in Hsinchu County, Taiwan for NT $361 million (US $11.82 million) to Twoway Communications.

The factory valued NT $220 million when Lextar merged with Wellypower in February 2013, and with the recent factory transaction valuing NT $361 million, bringing Lextar’s estimated gain of disposal from the transaction will be NT $141 million.

Lextar acquired the factory based in Hukou township in Hsinchu after merging with Wellypower in 2013. Following adjustments and converging production capacity, Lextar’s main manufacturing bases include factories in Hsinchu Science and Industrial Park, Jhunan, and a factory in Suzhou, China. The factory in Hukou has been idle, which was one of the main reasons it was sold to Twoway Communications since the latter company had production demands and interest in acquiring the factory.

Moreover, rising real estate prices over the years has made it difficult to acquire new factories, said Twoway Communications. Usually it takes manufacturers more than one year to find a suitable site, and construct a new factory. Additionally, surging construction material costs would make building a new factory far more expensive than buying an old one.  According to Twoway Communications, after making in-depth evaluations of the factory site location and size, Lextar’s factory met the company’s demands.

The Hukou factory being sold by Lextar spans 9,974 square meters, and building area of 11,171.59 square meters.