Advertisement
Advertisement

Top executive quit KPS over direction

Former KPS boss Rodney Miles yesterday confronted rumours about his departure, saying he had quit after discussions about the direction the entertainment chain was taking, and his role in controlling that movement.

He met the board of directors and detailed his belief that the firm needed to make changes amid new market conditions and that he needed to be given the power to make decisions and see them through.

Though appointed chief executive with a brief to take KPS from the successful brainchild of entrepreneurs into the future, Mr Miles did not have signing rights. These were retained by the previous management which eventually made his position untenable, leading to his resignation in June last year, he said.

'I'm surprised that these rumours have come up after all this time,' he said.

'The circumstances of my departure were well known and circulated at the time to the previous management, the board and the market in general. There was no question of my being fired or forced to resign or any hard feelings.' Mr Miles, a former chairman of the Hong Kong Retail Management Association, had been approached to head the KPS sales and rental operation after managers had decided to raise US$25 million to fund expansion in Hong Kong, Taiwan and possibly across the region.

'They had already decided to expand the business significantly and were going on a roadshow to America to fund that expansion and to make the company more of a corporate operation,' he said.

'The previous management and shareholders had accepted it was a small growing entrepreneurial business that now needed corporate leadership.' The growth of the video compact disc (VCD) market, cheap entertainment from both official products and the huge pirated supply, the expansion of cable television, as well as the decline in production and quality of Chinese films were all cutting into KPS' business.

'I was not able to implement the things that had to be done to put the business on a different footing in light of all the changes that were happening to the marketplace,' Mr Miles said.

He met the board on Friday, June 20, last year at its quarterly meeting and gave them an ultimatum to give him more power or he would resign.

By the following Monday the board was still wavering and he submitted his resignation, which was accepted, he said. He left KPS the same week, after eight months with the company.

'It was always going to be a difficult transition taking over a small business from entrepreneurs and making it corporate, but I accepted that challenge,' he said.

'We had an understanding but it just didn't work out.'

Post