ASTI Holdings announced that it will be retrenching its CEO Michael Loh Soon Gnee in efforts to ensure the group’s survival.
In a filing dated Dec 22, ASTI says that the group has been negatively impacted by the on-going geo-political tensions between China and US and the global pandemic (which has devastated the global economy and have adversely affected global supply chains).
In order to ensure the group’s survival during this difficult period and to exit the SGX watch-list, the group has decided to terminate Loh’s capacity as CEO with his last date with the company being Dec 31, 2021.
While Loh is contractually entitled to an aggregate of $2.04 million as part of his termination, the board has decided to pay Loh an aggregate amount of $1.38 million, which does not exceed the threshold stipulated under Section 168(1A) of the Companies Act, the approval of the shareholders in a general meeting is not required.
Loh will however remain as chairman, while current CFO Anthony Loh will be appointed as acting CEO in the meantime.
To recap, Loh joined ASTI as CEO in July 2013 and in April 2019 submitted his resignation from the semiconductor manufacturer, due to unspecified “personal reasons”, and was supposed to leave the group by April 2020. However, Loh withdrew his resignation in March 2020 after the company requested for him to lead it amid "challenging times" caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Loh was also the executive chairman and CEO of Advanced System Automations and Dragon Group International.
Shares of watch-listed ASTI closed at 2.9 cents on Dec 22.
