Foreign investors lack faith in Stan Shih to save Acer

November 9, 2013 Leave a comment

Foreign investors lack faith in Stan Shih to save Acer

Staff Reporter

2013-11-08

Foreign investors do not believe that Acer founder Stan Shih rejoining the management after the departure of former CEO Wang Jeng-tang will make a difference to the Taiwan-based PC maker, our sister paper China Times reported on Nov. 7. Acer’s share price closed at NT$16.9 (US$0.57) on Nov. 6, while anonymous foreign investors claimed that NT$12 (US$0.41) a share will be the bottom.China Times said Acer has continued to register losses for the fourth consecutive quarter, has laid off staff and terminated several projects.

Acer president Jim Wong was the first to take over from Wang but Barclays said promoting Wong would not make any difference because he was one of the senior managers under Wang and Shih who made major decisions for the company in the past.

Morgan Stanley Taiwan said it will be difficult for Acer to begin to make money again within the next two two years.

Citigroup said Acer’s future business will still be based on tablet computers and smartphones but Apple has occupied the market, while the rest of the competitors are experiencing deficits.

Shih’s office’s said they did not wish to make any comment as they are going through a period of transition, China Times reported.

Filed under Investing Process, TMT Trends

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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