Acer Founder Stan Shih Is Open To Company Sale
Stan Shih says he believes such a move could re-vitalise ailing Taiwanese manufacturer
The founder of one of the world’s leading PC manufacturers has said he would support a takeover of the business in the face of ever-growing competition.
Stan Shih, who founded Acer in 1976 and is the company’s president, told reporters he was ‘welcome’ to the idea of a sale following a steep fall in its share price.
However, Shih added that any potential buyer could pay a heavy price for its involvement in Acer, noting that any successful bidder would get an “empty shell”.
Concern
“U.S. and European management teams usually are concerned about money, their CEOs only work for money. But Taiwanese are more concerned about a sense of mission and emotional factors,” Shih (pictured left) said, according to Reuters.
The Taiwanese company has seen a sharp decline in sales recently, including a 33 percent drop in July compared to the previous year, and reported that it suffered a T$2.89 billion (£58.3 million) loss in the first six months of 2015.
Acer endured a period of boardroom upheaval two years ago, culminating in the appointment of Jason Chen as CEO in December 2013 following two previous resignations in as many months from that post.
Since then, the company has released a number of new PCs, smartphones and other computing devices as it looks to keep up in a variety of competitive markets.
This includes a range of Windows 10-powered ‘Cloudbook’ lightweight PCs to take on Google’s Chromebook devices, set to be released soon.
“We wanted to stimulate demand using new technology and we took the initiative more aggressively than anybody else, to the point where we got hurt,” Chen said in January 2014. “Hopefully we won’t repeat the same mistake we made before.”
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