(Yicai) Nov. 23 -- Honor, the Chinese smartphone maker spun off from Huawei Technologies three years ago, named a new chairman as the firm begins to prepare for an initial public offering.

Wu Hui, former chairman of Shenzhen Water and Environment Group, replaces Wan Biao, who becomes deputy chairman, Honor said in a statement yesterday, adding that the make-up of its board of directors will be diversified to meet the regulatory requirements for a publicly traded company.

Shenzhen-based Honor was the best-selling smartphone brand in China in the third quarter, with an 18 percent market share and 11.8 million shipments, according to Canalys.

Wu worked at the Shenzhen Municipal Party Committee General Office from 1996 to 2007 and then served as a deputy director of the Hubei Provincial Party Committee General Office and vice mayor of Xianning city in Hubei. He was Shenzhen Water’s chairman from June 2021 until recently. Wan worked at Huawei for many years and was named Honor’s chairman in 2020.

Shareholders look forward to making Honor more public, transparent, and diversified in capital resources, Chief Executive Officer George Zhao said recently when answering questions related to the firm’s potential listing.

“As the CEO, I will better support shareholders and the board in terms of strategy in this respect," he noted, adding that no more information could be disclosed at the time.

In yesterday’s statement, Honor also denied a report that it will go public by way of a reverse merger with phone dealer Telling Telecommunication Holding, which had also refuted the claim on Nov. 21.

Telling owns 19.4 percent of Shenzhen Star Alliance Information Technology Partnership, which has a stake in Honor, though to what degree is not publicly known

Honor started out life as a budget smartphone brand of Huawei. But in November 2020, Huawei sold it to Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology, a consortium of more than 30 state-owned firms, due to US curbs on the Shenzhen-based telecoms giant buying US technologies.

The State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Shenzhen is the absolute controlling shareholder of Honor, according to corporate information platform Tianyancha.

Since the spin-off, various companies, agents, dealers, and other players in the smartphone supply chain have invested in Honor. Rumors and reports about a potential listing have surfaced many times over the years, but the company has denied all of them.

Editor: Futura Costaglione