Acer Inc (宏碁) celebrated its 40th anniversary yesterday, with founder and former chairman Stan Shih (施振榮) urging high-ranking executives to purchase company shares.
“We want to create a corporate culture in which ranking officials would treat the company as their own, so they would care more about the company and not consider themselves as just a ‘salary earner,’” Shih said.
Shih said he had shared the idea with chief executive officer Jason Chen (陳俊聖) before Chen took the position in 2014.
Photo: CNA
Chen bought more than 2.55 million shares, or a 0.08 percent stake, in Acer from 2014 to last year, according to the company’s annual report published in June.
Shih said that he and Acer chairman George Huang (黃少華) both support Chen becoming Acer’s new chairman next year.
“Chen has a very strong bond with and commitment to Acer,” Shih said.
Companies nowadays use the so-called “golden parachute” policy to protect an executive’s interests in the event of contract termination, but Shih said he thinks only when an executive owns a stake in the company will they feel responsible and operate from a long-term development perspective rather than with a shortsighted view.
Shih said Acer does not rule out the possibility of seeking a foreign chief executive officer again, but the candidate must see the company as his own and agree with the core beliefs of Acer’s wangdao (王道) philosophy — which means sustainable development, value creation and balanced interests, he said.
Shih said that his eldest son, Maverick (施宣輝) — who is expected to start leading Acer’s Build Your Own Cloud business and smart devices business next month — might not become a board member any time soon, as he offers limited added-value to the company’s operations at the moment.
SEMICONDUCTORS: The German laser and plasma generator company will expand its local services as its specialized offerings support Taiwan’s semiconductor industries Trumpf SE + Co KG, a global leader in supplying laser technology and plasma generators used in chip production, is expanding its investments in Taiwan in an effort to deeply integrate into the global semiconductor supply chain in the pursuit of growth. The company, headquartered in Ditzingen, Germany, has invested significantly in a newly inaugurated regional technical center for plasma generators in Taoyuan, its latest expansion in Taiwan after being engaged in various industries for more than 25 years. The center, the first of its kind Trumpf built outside Germany, aims to serve customers from Taiwan, Japan, Southeast Asia and South Korea,
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