The Chinese owners of Imagination Technologies have drafted in a microchip industry veteran from a Beijing-backed technology conglomerate, after buying the British company last year.

Leo Li will be confirmed as the Hertfordshire-based company’s chief executive on Tuesday, it is understood. He replaces Andrew Heath, the former Rolls-Royce executive who took charge in 2016.

Imagination was one of Britain’s biggest listed technology companies but shares plunged last year when it announced it had lost a deal to supply graphics chip designs to Apple.

The iPhone giant accounted for half of Imagination’s revenues and the uncertainty generated by losing the deal forced the company to be sold to Canyon Bridge Partners, a private-equity fund supported by the Chinese government, last September.

Canyon Bridge paid £550m for Imagination, which was forced to sell off its US-based processor division MIPS because of US fears over Chinese involvement. Imagination has now appointed Mr Li, who has held a series of roles at Chinese semiconductor companies including Tsinghua Unigroup, a chip maker also backed by the country’s government.