The "power grab" storm of Anmou Technology is coming to an end, and the new co-CEO emphasizes that the company's independence remains unchanged

After two years, Arm China has been caught in the "seizure of power" storm for more than a week, and now it has entered the end of the stage.

Titanium media App May 6 news, following the determination of its official Weibo as a voice channel yesterday, Anmou Technology (China) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Anmou Technology") held an online staff meeting of many offices this morning, the company's new co-CEO (CEO) Liu Renchen and Chen Ke made their first collective appearance, and said that the independence, strategy and organizational structure framework of Anmou Technology will not change.

Liu Renchen, co-CEO of Anmou Technology, said that the change of the company's legal representative and CEO is not a unilateral act of any foreign shareholder, so the so-called "some foreign shareholders take back the joint venture" is completely fictitious. The change of leadership does not affect the positioning and development of Anmou Technology as an independent company in which Chinese investors hold majority stakes, and will continue to maintain independent development in the future and continue to provide services and support for China's related industries.

In addition, for the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), the Company's Board of Directors promised to implement ESOP and issue options to existing Anmou Technology employees as soon as the company transitions smoothly and operations return to normalcy under the leadership of the new leadership. At the same time, there is no plan to force the sanctioners, and the new leadership will continue to deepen the talent strategy and continue to attract, cultivate and make good use of talent.

Yesterday (May 5) morning, "Anmou Technology Official Weibo" issued a statement saying that in view of the former CEO Wu Xiongang who was removed by the company refused to perform the resolution of the board of directors, the new management decided to release the company's news as the only official channel from now on, and other "double micro" accounts, websites, domain names, expired business licenses and official seals of other companies illegally controlled by Wu Xiongang do not represent the opinions of the company and shareholders.

On the afternoon of May 6, the official micro released a "letter from Anmou Technology to all customers and partners" that under the takeover and leadership of the new leadership, on the basis of maintaining the business model of Anmou Technology unchanged, the company further developed a benign relationship with customers, continued to increase investment, and enriched the Arm China partner ecosystem. "Anmou Technology will continue to operate as an independent company to support the development of China's semiconductor industry."

This means that with the two new co-CEOs elected by major shareholders such as Arm and SoftBank formally taking office and taking over control of the company, the two-year "power grab" storm between the board of directors and the company's former CEO is now nearing its end.

As of press time, Wu Xiongang has not issued a new statement or reply.

It is reported that Arm, founded in 1990, is the world's leading semiconductor intellectual property (IP) provider, headquartered in the United Kingdom, mainly do CPU, GPU processor chip design and IP licensing, for Apple, Samsung and Qualcomm and other companies to develop mobile chip products to provide core underlying technical support, is currently the chip IP field market share of the first enterprise. In 2016, SoftBank spent $32 billion to acquire Arm and privatize it.

Anmou Technology is a joint venture established by Arm in China in 2018, and it is also the only licensing platform for Arm Technology IP in China, with partners including Alibaba, Tsinghua Unigroup Zhanrui, Huawei, etc., which is extremely important to China's chip semiconductor industry. Currently, 51% of the company's equity is held by Chinese investors and 49% by Arm.

The fuse of this coaching change storm of Anmou Technology occurred two years ago. In June 2020, Arm joined forces with SoftBank and other shareholders to try to remove former chairman and CEO Wu Xiongang on the grounds that Wu Xiongang "endangered the development of Anmou China, the company's shareholders and stakeholders" with a 7:1 board vote ratio, but Wu Xiongang refused to hand over the company's official seal and the recall was deadlocked. (For details, see the titanium media App above: "Arm China coaching storm start and end |.) Titanium Media Depth")

At the end of March this year, due to Nvidia's failed acquisition of Arm, and SoftBank announced in February that Arm would achieve an IPO listing of Arm, Arm confirmed to Titanium Media App that for internal accounting related reasons, it had transferred its equity in Anmou Technology to a company jointly held and controlled by Arm and SoftBank. Arm Global will need to conduct a consolidated audit of the revenue of the joint venture company in order to successfully go public. (For details, see the previous article of the Titanium Media App: "Sun Zhengyi decided to transfer the equity of Anmou China in order to accelerate the listing of Arm Company")

Since the end of April this year, a number of actions such as the resolution of the board of directors of Anmou Technology and the release of two statements by Wu Xiongang have once again exposed the company's "power grab" storm in the media spotlight.

The Titanium Media App simply sorted out the nodes of this round of events as follows:

On April 27, according to a number of foreign media reports, SoftBank and Arm plan to remove Wu Xiongang, CEO of Anmou Technology, who holds 16% of the shares of the joint venture, and set up two co-CEOs;

On April 28, the industrial and commercial registration information of the members of the board of directors of Anmou Technology, as well as the legal representative and general manager of the company, was changed from Wu Xiongang to Liu Renchen; Wu Xiongang no longer served as chairman of the board and withdrew from the board of directors;

On the morning of April 29, a copy of the email obtained by Titanium Media App announcing the appointment of the new management of Anmou Technology said that the board of directors passed a unanimous resolution in accordance with the company's articles of association and relevant laws and regulations, hired Liu Renchen and Chen Ke as co-CEOs of Anmou Technology, and completed the change of industrial and commercial registration in accordance with the law;

At noon on April 29, the former management issued a statement with the official seal on the "registration of industrial and commercial changes", saying that "there are major legal flaws in the registration procedures for this industrial and commercial change". The statement pointed out that there had been a dispute within the company over the replacement of the board of directors and in the course of judicial proceedings, and no board meeting on the aforementioned changes had been held, let alone any relevant company resolutions;

On the morning of April 30, Arm Corporation, Hopu Capital and SoftBank Group, the major shareholders of Anmou Technology, jointly announced that after the unanimous resolution of the company's board of directors, it supported the appointment of two new co-CEOs, and the corporate governance issues that have been solved have been solved;

On the afternoon of April 30, Wu Xiongang told the Titanium Media App and others that at present, it is promoting the resolution of this matter by submitting administrative reconsideration and applying for the revocation of such acts in accordance with the law.

With the completion of the registration process for industrial and commercial changes, the management of Anmou Technology was transferred from the original CEO Wu Xiongang's team to the new management.

At the internal staff meeting on the morning of May 6, Chen Ke, co-CEO of Anmou Technology, said that today's Anmou Technology has the full support of Chinese shareholders and the support and recognition of foreign shareholders, and many partners will continue to support its layout and future development in the Chinese market.

Infographic: Liu Renchen (left), new co-CEO of Anmou Technology (left), Chen Ke (right)

Xia Hailong, a lawyer at Shanghai Shenlun Law Firm, told the media that from a legal point of view, the change has taken effect.

It is worth noting that the People's Daily yesterday published an article entitled "Behind the Storm of Anmou's 'Seizure of Power': The Potential Risk of Mobile Phone Industry Chain Security Increases", which partially supports Wu Xiongang's view. He also pointed out that this storm has made the already tense chip and mobile phone industry more worried about the potential supply chain disturbance risk.

The report quoted unsigned industry experts as saying that the impact of the "infighting" incident of Anmou Technology on the security of the domestic industrial chain may be more complicated than expected, and vigilance should be raised. But experts also said that there is no need to worry too much about the impact of the storm on the industry.

"Many domestic enterprises have obtained permanent authorization, there is no possibility of not being able to use or withdraw the authorization in the future, and the 'infighting' of Anmou will not affect the domestic chip industry." Even in the case of supply outages, with the current technical capabilities of Chinese enterprises, it is possible to design chips independently. The report said.

In fact, the ARM-based chip covers more than 95% of the domestic smartphone terminals, and it licenses its chip design IP to Chinese customers through Arm China. The Chinese joint venture "Anmou Technology" business has grown steadily, accounting for most of Arm's global growth in the past few years, accounting for more than 26% of total revenue. Wu Xiongang has said that the revenue of Anmou Technology is expected to reach $900 million this year, up from $700 million in 2021.

Titanium Media App learned from informed sources that Wu Xiongang is currently resolving this matter through legal means such as administrative reconsideration, and he will not compromise on this for the time being. For some time to come, Wu Xiongang may continue to fight for control of the company and announce the progress of the matter to the outside world.

(This article was first published on titanium media App, author | Lin Zhijia)