AUO appoints Frank Ko as new president

LCD panel maker AU Optronics Corp's board of directors has approved the appointment of Frank Ko as the company’s president and chief operating officer with a remit to help grow the company’s new businesses.

Outgoing President Michael Tsai is to serve as chief executive officer of AUO affiliate Darwin Precisions Corp. The personnel adjustments take effect today, the company said in a regulatory filing yesterday.

Ko joined AUO in 2000. He was promoted to vice president of the technology and strategic development office in 2011 and was responsible for its advanced technology road map and strategic planning. Ko left the company in 2017 for e-paper display supplier E Ink Holdings Co, where he served as chairman. E Ink confirmed Ko’s resignation in a separate regulatory filing, saying that president Johnson Lee would become interim chairman.

In another filing, AUO said that its board also approved a proposal to stop trading its American depositary receipts on the New York Stock Exchange after 17 years to save costs.

The securities would be traded on the secondary market from Oct. 1 at the earliest, the company said.

The board also approved a plan to buy back as many as 125 million shares to reward the company’s employees, AUO said.

The company plans to repurchase the shares at a price of between NT$5.71 and NT$11.84 a share from today until Nov. 9.

Meanwhile, both AUO and its domestic rival, Innolux Corp, posted higher revenue for last month as improving demand boosted their PC and TV panel shipments.

AUO’s revenue climbed 9.5 percent month-on-month to NT$24.14 billion (US$772.48 million), with shipments of PC and TV panels jumping 18.3 percent to 9.95 million units, while Innolux’s revenue increased 2.5 percent to NT$21.05 billion after panel shipments rose 2.6 percent to 10.35 million units.