Kenneth Tan will step down as head of Singapore exhibitor Golden Village (GV) as the company's co-owners, Australia's Village Roadshow and Hong Kong 's Golden Harvest, settle their dispute over their Singapore business partnership.

The partners were at odds with each other when Golden Harvest petitioned to end their Singapore venture in 2005 and Tan was singled out for much criticism. The lawsuit was settled out-of-court in Hong Kong only last Friday.

Today the two partners announced in a joint statement that 'they have put their recent dispute behind them and have jointly recommitted to making their business in Singapore a success'.

Village Leisure's managing director David Glass is expected to be in Singapore as early as next week to serve as interim managing director of GV until a successor is named. A pioneer in building multiplex in South East Asia, he set up Singapore 's GV in 1992 and stayed as general manager until 1998.

Tan spent the last four years in strengthening GV's position as Singapore's largest exhibitor. One of his major contributions was the opening of the 15-screen flagship at VivoCity in October 2006.

Tan's resignation, effective from Jan 31, came about soon after a major management reshuffle in Golden Harvest. Late last month, long-time managing director CK Phoon was re-designated as non-executive director while Chengtian Entertainment's Wu Kebo took over Phoon's role as acting managing director.

Phoon previously filed a defamation suit against Tan which was settled out-of-court in January 2007.

The Beijing-based talent management and production house Chengtian is now the largest single shareholder of the Hong Kong-listed company after buying a 24.78% stake in October from founder Raymond Chow.

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