This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on December 3, 2015.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malakoff Corp Bhd chief executive officer (CEO) Datuk Seri Syed Faisal Albar resigned, according to the company’s Bursa Malaysia filing yesterday, just six months after the company was listed under the largest initial public offering (IPO) exercise the country has seen in recent years.

Malakoff said Syed Faisal, 50, resigned to “pursue other career opportunity”. His resignation will be effective on Dec 31. He was appointed Malakoff CEO on July 1, 2014, and helmed the company until its much touted RM2.74 billion IPO on May 14 this year.

In a statement, Malakoff chairman Tan Sri Syed Anwar Jamalullail said Malakoff’s board had accepted Syed Faisal’s decision to leave, and expressed its thanks for his contributions.

Syed Anwar said the company shall make the appropriate announcement on the CEO’s replacement soon, adding that the board is “open to a suitable candidate, whether local or foreign”.

“In the meantime, the day-to-day operations should not be affected as the internal management has extensive experience in the day-to-day management of the organisation,” he added.

Syed Faisal’s resignation came following the company’s move to sue its Tanjung Bin power plant’s Japanese boiler manufacturers and service providers for about RM780 million on account of breaches of duty, which led to the plant’s various incidents of boiler tube failure and inability to meet certain output requirements.

Malakoff told Bursa Malaysia on Tuesday that its subsidiary Tanjung Bin Power Sdn Bhd had filed a writ of summons and statement of claim against IHI Corp Japan, ISHI Power Sdn Bhd, and IHI Power (M) Sdn Bhd for “breaches of duty of care”.

The coal-fired 2,100mw Tanjung Bin power plant in Johor encountered leakages in its boiler tube in mid-2013, which persisted until mid-February 2014, following a major maintenance completion capacity testing on March 7.

The leakages caused an unscheduled shutdown of two of its three power generating blocks. Consequently, the company incurred a loss of RM200 million per quarter.