(Bloomberg) — Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd., the world’s biggest maker of electric-vehicle batteries, said Vice-Chairman Huang Shilin resigned effective Monday to pursue opportunities in battery charging and energy storage.
Huang, 56, resigned for personal reasons and the move won’t have any negative impact on business operations, Ningde, Fujian-based CATL said in an earlier statement. He will be succeeded by the company’s president, 44-year-old Zhou Jia.
Huang, China’s ninth richest person with a net worth of about $20 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has a stake of about 10.6% in CATL.
In June, CATL denied rumors that Huang cut his stake for cash, saying that he had transferred about 2 million shares to six private funds he owned and there was no change in the size of his holding.
CATL Denies Rumor That Vice Chairman Cut Stake for Cash
CATL, which listed in Shenzhen in 2018, has a dominant position in the world’s EV battery market, supplying companies including Tesla Inc. and Chinese startups Nio Inc. and Xpeng Inc. CATL shares are down 9% this year, but up more than 2,000% since listing.
Kevin Shang, an analyst Wood Mackenzie, said he wasn’t surprised that Huang was leaving to explore opportunities in solar, fast charging and the booming energy storage sector. He said Huang obviously has a passion for those areas, based on his public comments, and that other big names could also leave leading battery companies to set up businesses focused on energy storage.
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