(Yicai) Nov. 26 -- Chinese high-performance materials maker Swancor Advanced Materials has appointed the co-founder of AgiBot, the Chinese robotics startup that recently became its controller, as its new chairman.

Peng Zhihui, who is also the president and chief technology officer of AgiBot, was unanimously elected as Swancor's new chairman at an interim shareholders meeting, Swancor announced yesterday.

Peng, 33, began his career as an algorithm engineer at the Oppo Research Institute. In 2020, he was selected for Huawei Technologies' Genius Youth program and was later named as a departmental principal engineer at the Chinese telecoms giant. In February 2023, he co-founded AgiBot with former Huawei Vice President Deng Taihua and others.

The shareholders' meeting also elected five non-independent directors of Swancor's new board, three of whom hold key positions at AgiBot. They are Peng, Senior VP and Marketing President Jiang Qingsong, and VP and Chief Human Resources Officer Niu Jia.

The two others are Swancor's Chief Executive Officer Tian Hua and co-CEO and CTO Zhou Bin, who are the key executives responsible for the company's daily operations.

Swancor's new board is now composed of these five non-independent directors, three independent directors, and one employee representative director, with Peng as chairman.

As AgiBot executives gain influence on Swancor's board, it is yet to be seen whether the two companies can deepen cooperation in material manufacturing and robotics application scenarios to unlock their synergistic potential, Yuan Shuai, deputy secretary-general of the Zhongguancun Internet of Things Industry Alliance, told Yicai.

AgiBot completed its takeover of Swancor earlier this month, now holding a 58.6 percent stake. Combined with the shares held by parties acting in concert, AgiBot owns 63.6 percent of the voting rights in Swancor.

This was the first time that a Chinese embodied intelligence startup took control of a business listed on the Star Market, the Shanghai Stock Exchange's Nasdaq-like board.

Swancor [SHA: 688565] was trading unchanged at CNY118.31 (USD16.70) as of 1.45 p.m. today. The stock has jumped about 1,416 percent since the company first announced AgiBot's takeover on July 8.

Swancor's main business includes materials for wind turbine blades and other new composite materials. AgiBot develops embodied intelligence robots. It produced its 1,000th robot in January, with annual shipments expected to reach several thousand units this year.

Editor: Futura Costaglione