Shanghai Electric Group yesterday named a new chairman and said it will conduct a review of its assets in a bid to pull itself out of the doldrums following the detention of three high-ranking executives.

The company, the mainland's biggest power equipment manufacturer, announced that Xu Jianguo would replace Wang Chengming as chairman.

Wang was detained for questioning last week on suspicion of "seriously violating" Communist Party rules and regulations.

Company President Huang Dinan said yesterday that Wang had already resigned for "personal reasons," and that Xu had been elected as his successor at a board meeting on Friday.

The firm has been mired in scandal since three of its board members were detained amid corruption allegations, with the firm's Hong Kong-traded shares being suspended several times due to the news.

However, Huang stressed yesterday that the Wang incident involved personal misconduct, had nothing to do with the company and would have no impact on Shanghai Electric's operations.

In a bid to restore investor confidence, Huang said that the first task of the new management would be to review the current position of the company's assets.

Huang said that the company was working with the industry regulator to ensure the timely disclosure of details of the incident to shareholders, and expressed his hope that trading could soon be resumed in the company's shares.

Shanghai Electric recorded a 1.17 billion yuan (US$146 million) profit in the first six months of 2006, a year-on-year rise of 42 percent. Its revenue grew 29.6 percent year-on-year to 21.2 billion yuan (US$2.65 million).

(China Daily August 22, 2006)