Jimmy Lai quits role of Apple Daily publisher

According to an Apple Daily report, Jimmy Lai, director and chairman of Next Media, steps down from his role as publisher of Apple Daily.The same report said that Lai was arrested at the Occupy Central protest site in Admiralty at around 5pm yesterday afternoon.Ip Yut-kin, former CEO of print media at Next Media, will replace Lai as the publication's new publisher.Ip had worked in his previous role since October 2011, overseeing Next Media Group's newspapers, magazines and print operations.A written Next Media (0282) announcement published on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange website last night, with a 6:46pm timestamp, stated, "As the business and operations of the Group are and have been operating by a professional management team and not Mr. Lai alone, the Board considers that at present, this incident will not affect the normal and usual course of business of the Group."Lai is listed as chairman of Next Media in the written announcement.Next Media's stock price stood at HK$0.65 per share at 4pm yesterday, according to The Wall Street Journal Quote Lookup.  At 11am this morning, its share price stood at HK$0.66 per share.Update at 8:40pm: An earlier version of this story erroneously named Jimmy Lai's job title as editor-in-chief.  We apologise for the mistake. It has since been corrected to reflect his actual job title as publisher.