Taiwan’s Yang Ming Marine Transport will reportedly appoint a former Citi executive as its chairman while shipping veteran Bronson Hsieh steps down.
Government sources said National Development Council’s deputy minister Cheng-Mount Cheng will take the helm at the state-controlled box carrier, according to media outlets in Taiwan.
He was Citibank Taiwan’s chief economist between 2002 and 2012 before serving as president of Academy of Banking and Finance and of Agricultural Bank of Taiwan.
Cheng, who entered the public sector in 2016, was the vice-chairman of Financial Supervisory Commission before being appointed as National Development Council’s deputy minister in 2018.
The senior financier has sat on Yang Ming’s board since August 2018, as the council is its second-largest shareholder.
A formal appointment is expected to be made in the coming weeks. Yang Ming declined to comment on this story.
According to local observers, Cheng does not have a maritime background but he could help improve Yang Ming’s financial standing with his banking expertise.
Hsieh, 69, told the Commercial Times he tended his resignation in May as it has been in his career plan to retire after serving a three-year term.
The veteran became Yang Ming’s chairman and chief executive about four years ago after spending nearly four decades at Evergreen Group.
The former Evergreen vice-president quit Taiwan’s largest container line after founder Chang Yung-fa died in January 2016.
In his tenure as chairman, Hsieh has sought to improve Yang Ming’s management standards and environmental performances.
The carrier said it managed to reduce carbon emissions per teu-km by 51% from the 2008 level last year.
But Yang Ming has remained mostly a loss-making business.
The Taipei-listed company recorded a loss of TWD 4.31bn in 2019, following a loss of TWD 6.59bn a year earlier.
