kopi-C with CEO of ASTI Holdings: The company nobody wanted to rescue

 

For every semiconductor chip that goes into a piece of consumer electronics, it first has to be placed into a plastic carrier tape, sealed, and wound onto a reel.

Why? 

Simply put: so it can be fed into an automated assembly machine at maximum efficiency. Without this step, modern electronics manufacturing would grind to a halt.

Since 1999, ASTI Holdings has been in the business of doing this at scale. Headquartered in Singapore with factories in Malaysia, the Philippines, China, and Scotland, the group describes itself as one of the world&rsquo s largest independent providers of tape-and-reel packaging services for semiconductors.

For much of the past four years, however, ASTI Holdings has been better known for a governance crisis that left its shares suspended and annual reports years overdue.

In January 2024, CEO Ng Yew Nam stepped into his new role and was tasked with fixing, well, everything.

The decision

Before Ng ran ASTI Holdings, he founded iTrue Technologies in 2005 and led it for nearly 20 years, building it into a specialist in machine vision inspection for the passive electronic chip components industry. 

And before founding iTrue, Ng had been an employee within one of ASTI Holdings&rsquo subsidiaries, and later became a substantial shareholder in the group. When trading at ASTI Holdings was suspended in 2022, he offered to step in, though that opportunity did not materialise.

By early 2024, the previous board had been replaced entirely. Ng took on the role of CEO in January 2024 and was elevated to Executive Chairman by November of that year.

&ldquo The decision to take on this role was a combination of factors. I invested in the company and I wanted to protect my investment,&rdquo he shares. 

&ldquo But more importantly, after carefully evaluating the situation, I was convinced that the challenges were structural rather than fundamental.&rdquo

He observed that despite the trading suspension, the company continued generating revenue and customers had not walked away.

&ldquo That is why I thought it was worth fixing,&rdquo he says.