New | Taiwan smartphone giant HTC's former CEO joins Hong Kong tech firm Digital Domain

Digital Domain Holdings, which runs the world’s biggest independent visual-effects company, has named former HTC chief executive Peter Chou Yung-ming as an executive director of the company, according to its regulatory filing on Friday, in an apparent effort to boost investors' confidence following the firm's unexpected trouble in the stock market earlier this year. 

Chou’s appointment, with effect from August 31, marks the first high-profile, senior executive recruitment undertaken by Digital Domain under its strategy to transform into a full-fledged technology company.

“With his expertise, the board believes he will contribute his valuable insights in the group’s business development,” Digital Domain chairman and chief executive Daniel Seah Ang said in the filing.

Chou, a co-founder of Taiwanese smartphone supplier HTC, brings the kind of credentials which could help Hong Kong-listed Digital Domain raise its profile with investors after events of the past few months.

Digital Domain’s share price plummeted in June amid news reports that well-connected Mainland Chinese businessman Che Feng, owner of a significant amount of the company's convertible bonds, was arrested the country’s anti-graft authorities. Its shares finished up 2.38 per cent to 43 Hong Kong cents on Friday, which is far from the close of HK$2.75 it set on May 19.

The beating taken by Digital Domain’s shares was followed by the cancellation of a proposed management buyout. Seah represented senior management’s bid to buy 25 per cent of former company chairman Zhou Jian’s stake in the company for an estimated HK$3.97 billion (US$512 million) in what would have been one of the biggest management buyouts in Hong Kong.

Digital Domain is currently expanding into the virtual-reality content business through a joint venture with Canadian company IM360 Entertainment, a subsidiary of interactive media firm Immersive Ventures.