Creative Technology Ltd chief executive Sim Wong Hoo was a hard act to follow, because his message to the conference was that he’d bought 1.7m shares of his own company in the past two weeks, signalling that better times for the Singapore maker of personal computer sound boards, which account for 75% of its turnover, were on the way. the purchases took Sim’s stake to 29%. For the past few quarters, Creative has been cutting jobs and trimming operations because of declining sales, increasing competition and falling prices, but Sim said his company’s restructuring is complete, and while revenue for the fiscal year ending June 30 will decline from the year before, Sim said he expects modest revenue growth for the fiscal year ending June 1998. The company will continue to concentrate on making sound boards and audio products, he assured the conference, and asserted roundly that There’s nothing wrong with being a one-product company – Intel is a one-product company.
