Liu Chuanzhi, ‘godfather’ of Chinese PC industry, retires as chairman of Legend Holdings
- Under Liu’s leadership, Lenovo acquired IBM’s PC business in 2004 to expand into international markets
Liu Chuanzhi, 75, the founder of Lenovo Group, has retired as chairman of Legend Holdings, the parent company of the world’s largest PC vendor, according to documents filed with the Hong Kong stock exchange on Wednesday.
Ning Min, currently executive director, senior vice president and chief financial officer of Legend Holdings, will succeed Liu as chairman. Ning joined Legend in 1991. In retirement, Liu will serve as honorary chairman, senior adviser and member of the strategy committee of the board of directors.
“This systematic inheritance plan was tailor designed … to satisfy the pressing needs of the overall corporate development and gained overwhelming support from the board of directors,” Liu said in a statement on Wednesday. “This specific personnel reassignment has been initiated in tandem with the pragmatic and long-standing development requirements of the company.”
Zhu Linan, executive director and the president of Legend Holdings, will resign as president but continue to serve as a director, while Li Peng, senior vice president, was appointed as CEO.
Born in Zhenjiang City, east China’s Jiangsu Province in 1944, Liu along with 10 other researchers received an investment of 200,000 yuan (US$28,580) from the Institute of Computing Technology (ICT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, to set up the ICT New Technology Development Company in 1984, which was the beginnings of Legend, which later became Lenovo.
From modest beginnings in an area less than 20 square metres at ICT, Legend has developed into an international conglomerate over the past 35 years with both financial and strategic investments in industries spanning from IT, financial services, agriculture to advanced manufacturing and investment management.
In 1990, the company launched its self-branded PC in the domestic Chinese market. Seven years later, Lenovo became the No. 1 PC brand in China by market share and in 2000, it had achieved the largest market share in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan, according to the company.
In 2001, Legend spun off into Lenovo as a proprietary-branded business and Digital China to specialise in agency services and distribution, while the parent company became an investment holding company that had interests in multiple industries.
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Under Liu’s leadership, Lenovo acquired IBM’s PC business in 2004 to expand to international markets, a move widely regarded as an example of Chinese companies “going global”.
However, Lenovo struggled to build a consumer PC business worldwide and to bring products to market quickly. The company suffered losses of US$226 million for the 2008 financial year amid the financial crisis. Liu returned as chairman of Lenovo in February 2009 to replace Yang Yuanqing, a Lenovo veteran who served as chairman from 2005 to 2009.
Liu helped turn the company around in the wake of the global economic downturn. Replaced by then Lenovo chief executive Yang, Liu retired again in 2011 when the company became the world’s second-largest PC maker. Liu has since focused on the parent company Legend Holdings, which listed on Hong Kong stock exchange in 2015.
Last year, Legend’s revenue reached 358.9 billion yuan (US$51.3 billion), while Lenovo became the world’s largest PC vendor with 24.7 per cent of global market share in the third quarter of 2019, according to data from research firm Gartner.
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