It’s not a good week for CEOs. Following yesterday’s shakeup that saw Thorsten Heins replaced by John S. Chen at the head of BlackBerry, Acer Chairman and CEO J.T. Wang today announced his resignation following the company’s worse-than-expected loss of T$13.12 billion (US$446 million). The board accepted his resignation and immediately announced that Corporate President Jim Wong will succeed Wang as the new CEO from January 1, 2014.
J.T. Wang, chairman and CEO of Acer, said, “Acer encountered many complicated and harsh challenges in the past few years. With the consecutive poor financial results, it is time for me to hand over the responsibility to a new leadership team to path the way for a new era.”
Acer, still the fourth largest PC manufacturer in the world, saw its PC sales plummet and explained that its operating loss “was mainly due to the gross margin impact of gearing up for the Windows 8.1 sell in and the related management of inventory.” Things are not expected to get better in Q4 as the company anticipates a further 10 percent decrease in shipments of notebooks, tablet PCs and Chromebooks.
Acer has also set up a Transformation Advisory Committee headed up by company founder Stan Shih to “propose changes in the company vision, strategy, and execution plans.” Already approved is a plan to cut about 7 percent of its staff in a bid to save US$100 million in annual operating expenses in 2014.
Source : Acer