BenQ chief resigns over difficulties in Germany

The chairman of BenQ offered his resignation on over losses caused by the company's inability to make its former German mobile phone subsidiary profitable, an InfoWorld Daily  report said.

The report said BenQ's board of directors refused to accept the offer, however, demanding that he remain in his role and turn the company around.

K.Y. Lee offered to resign over losses suffered after the Taiwanese company's acquisition, then disposal, of the mobile phone arm of Siemens, which operated for about a year under the name BenQ Mobile.

BenQ Mobile filed for bankruptcy last September after BenQ announced it would stop investing in it, then a few weeks ago the German administrator dealing with the case said the company would be split up and sold after attempts to find a buyer failed, the report said.

BenQ obtained the mobile phone operations from Siemens in 2005 as part of a bid to develop a global mobile phone brand, the report added.

Stiff competition in the mobile phone industry hurt the company's efforts to grow, however, and after racking up losses of over 840 million euros ($1.1 billion), BenQ finally called it quits.

The company's board refused the resignation and said it will form a task force to review and report on all losses attributed to the acquisition of the mobile phone maker, the report further said.