Sharp Corp, a subsidiary of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), is to convene an internal meeting on Monday next week to discuss the feasibility of establishing a dual chief executive officer structure, Sharp president and CEO Tai Jeng-wu (戴正吳) said in Taipei on Friday.
Tai, appointed by Hon Hai chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) last year to help turn around the Japanese electronics maker, said the planned co-CEO arrangement aims to cultivate the company’s next president after Sharp’s shares on Thursday once more began trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s First Section for large companies.
Tai earlier said that he would step down once Sharp returns to the First Section. The stock was on Aug. 1 last year downgraded to the Second Section due to a slump in business.
The 66-year-old Tai said he plans to keep his pledge, but directors on the company’s board, some shareholders and several analysts have expressed the hope that he would stay and lead the company.
“The board members said it is not right to elect a new president when the company is recovering, so we have started to think about the possibility of a co-CEO system,” Tai said.
He said the arrangement would enable him to delegate some control over cultivating his possible successor.
Japanese media reported that Tai on Thursday in Tokyo said he hopes the board would select a co-CEO candidate as soon as the first half of next year.
Tai did not elaborate on the restructuring plan, but dismissed market speculation that Sharp intends to acquire a 35 percent stake in Japan Display Inc (JDI) with the aim of jointly developing organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display technology.
“We had approached JDI with the idea of forming an alliance for developing OLED technology, but we do not plan to invest in JDI,” Tai said.
Moreover, before Sharp can form an alliance with the firm, it needs to know what the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and the Innovation Network Corp of Japan think about teaming up against South Korean competitors, he said.
Hon Hai in March last year announced it was to acquire Sharp for ¥388.8 billion (US$3.43 billion). It completed the deal in August last year after gaining approval from the Chinese anti-monopoly watchdog.
On Oct. 26, the company reported profits of ¥20.2 billion for the July-to-September quarter, its fourth straight quarter of net profit, compared with net losses of ¥17.9 billion during the same period last year.
The company revised its earnings forecast for this fiscal year through March next year to ¥69 billion from the previous estimate of ¥59 billion, which would be Sharp’s first profitable year in four years.
Separately on Friday, Hon Hai last month posted its highest-ever monthly revenue due to rising shipments of Apple Inc’s premium iPhone X.
Revenue rose 18.5 percent year-on-year and 17.33 percent month-on-month to NT$569.6 billion (US$18.98 billion), bringing cumulative revenue for the first 11 months to NT$4.32 trillion, up 3.2 percent from a year ago.
The revenue data dismissed market worries over demand for the iPhone X and the technology bottlenecks Hon Hai faced in assembling the gadget due to a significant upgrade in specifications.
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