Edgar Masri has been removed as chief executive of data network equipment maker 3Com Inc and immediately replaced by Robert Mao (毛渝南), a fluent Mandarin speaker who will be based in China, which the Massachusetts-based firm sees as its biggest market.
The management shuffle comes a month after a proposed US$2.2 billion buyout of 3Com was scuttled because of concern over a Chinese company’s role. The change also brings in Ronald Sege to the new position of chief operating officer and as president of the company, effective as of yesterday.
Eric Benhamou will remain chairman of 3Com’s board, company spokesman Kevin Flanagan said.
Mao, 64, who became 3Com’s executive vice president for corporate development in August 2006, left seven months later, though he retained a spot on 3Com’s board.
“It was a decision by the board of directors to make a change in the senior executive area and essentially they decided to replace Edgar Masri with Bob Mao as our CEO, with Ronald Sege as our president and COO,” Flanagan said.
Mao, who has worked in China for Nortel Networks, will oversee 4,000 employees in China, a growing market for 3Com’s switches, routers and other gear to help data networks run efficiently.
“We’ve got the majority of our employees in China and a very large piece of our revenue,” Flanagan said.
Sege, 51, most recently president and CEO of Tropos Networks Inc, a wireless broadband network provider, will focus on 3Com’s operations outside China. He’ll work from company headquarters in the Boston suburb of Marlborough, home to about 400 of the company’s global work force of about 6,000.
The management changes were announced after trading closed, with shares of 3Com up US$0.04 at US$2.34.
Masri, who was president and CEO from 2006 until Tuesday, announced a proposal in September for Boston-based private equity firm Bain Capital Partners to lead a buyout of 3Com.
He said that the deal would help 3Com gain freedom from the whims of the market and improve its chances of expanding in China.
The deal would have given Huawei Technologies (華為), China’s largest maker of telecommunications equipment, a minority stake in 3Com — a prospect that raised the ire of US lawmakers afraid that sensitive military technology would be transferred to China.
3Com’s stock rose 34 percent the day the deal was announced but declined after the concerns arose. Bain and 3Com then failed to agree on ways to restructure the deal to address lawmakers’ fears.
Bain cited the national security issues in announcing last month that it was giving up on the deal.
3Com’s Flanagan said Masri’s ouster had “absolutely nothing to do with” the failed buyout.
Beijing’s continued provocations in the Taiwan Strait reveal its intention to unilaterally change the “status quo” in the area, the US Department of State said on Saturday, calling for a peaceful resolution to cross-strait issues. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) reported that four China Coast Guard patrol vessels entered restricted and prohibited waters near Kinmen County on Friday and again on Saturday. A State Department spokesperson said that Washington was aware of the incidents, and urged all parties to exercise restraint and refrain from unilaterally changing the “status quo.” “Maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is in line with our [the
EXTENDED RANGE: Hsiung Sheng missiles, 100 of which might be deployed by the end of the year, could reach Chinese command posts and airport runways, a source said A NT$16.9 billion (US$534.93 million) project to upgrade the military’s missile defense systems would be completed this year, allowing the deployment of at least 100 long-range Hsiung Sheng missiles and providing more deterrence against China, military sources said on Saturday. Hsiung Sheng missiles are an extended-range version of the Hsiung Feng IIE (HF-2E) surface-to-surface cruise missile, and are believed to have a range of up to 1,200km, which would allow them to hit targets well inside China. They went into mass production in 2022, the sources said. The project is part of a special budget for the Ministry of National Defense aimed at
READY TO WORK: Taiwan is eager to cooperate and is hopeful that like-minded states will continue to advocate for its inclusion in regional organizations, Lai said Maintaining the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, and peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region must be a top priority, president-elect William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday after meeting with a delegation of US academics. Leaders of the G7, US President Joe Biden and other international heads of state have voiced concerns about the situation in the Strait, as stability in the region is necessary for a safe, peaceful and prosperous world, Lai said. The vice president, who is to be inaugurated in May, welcomed the delegation and thanked them for their support for Taiwan and issues concerning the Strait. The international community
COOPERATION: Two crewmembers from a Chinese fishing boat that sank off Kinmen were rescued, two were found dead and another two were still missing at press time The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) was yesterday working with Chinese rescuers to find two missing crewmembers from a Chinese fishing boat that sank southwest of Kinmen County yesterday, killing two crew. The joint operation managed to rescue two of the boat’s six crewmembers, but two were already dead when they were pulled from the water, the agency said in a statement. Rescuers are still searching for two others from the Min Long Yu 61222, a boat registered in China’s Fujian Province that capsized and sank 1.03 nautical miles (1.9km) southwest of Dongding Island (東碇), it added. CGA Director-General Chou Mei-wu (周美伍) told a