TWO former senior employees of UOB Kay Hian Private Limited (UOBKH) were charged on Wednesday for allegedly lying to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in relation to reports on a then Catalist aspirant. Lan Kang Ming, 38, and Wee Toon Lee, 34, each face three charges of providing MAS with false information in October 2018 in relation to due diligence reports on an unidentified company applying to list on the Catalist board of the Singapore Exchange. MAS said in a media statement on Wednesday that it was performing an onsite inspection of UOBKH between June and August 2018, to assess the latter's controls, policies and procedures in relation to its role as an issue manager for Initial Public Offering (IPOs). During the examination, Lan and Wee were said to have provided different versions of a due diligence report relating to background checks on a company applying to be listed on the Catalist board of the Singapore Exchange. UOBKH had acted as the issue manager
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Acquisition triggers mandatory offer for rest of the shipbuilding firm
By GRACE LEONG
14 February 2011
A Deutsche Bank-led consortium has acquired a majority stake in Singapore offshore chartering and shipbuilding company Jaya Holdings from a private equity firm for $202.6 million.
Cathay Asset Management Co, a Deutsche Bank unit that invests in distressed entities, on behalf of the consortium, acquired a 54.7 per cent stake in Jaya, or 422 million shares, from Affinity Equity Partners, according to a statement issued over the weekend.
Sources say the acquisition isn’t expected to affect a restructuring agreement Jaya struck with creditors in January last year.
Under the restructuring, creditors agreed to swap their loans for five-year US dollar secured obligations, with a holiday on principal repayments for the first two years.
The consortium’s acquisition of Affinity’s majority stake will trigger a mandatory offer for the rest of Jaya.
The offer price of $0.48 a share is a 27.3 per cent discount to the last traded price of $0.66 on Friday. Jaya’s shares edged up 0.8 per cent on Friday.
Affinity, which bought the Jaya stake through Nautical Offshore Services in 2006 at the height of the credit boom, has been trying to offload its stake since early 2010 when it hired Credit Suisse Group AG as sellside advisor.
Affinity’s stake was recently placed in receivership, with Borrelli Walsh acting as receiver. Jaya was not making enough money to service a $233 million loan that Affinity used to acquire the shares.
As such, the deal marks the end of a struggle by Affinity to exit the business, which never fully recovered from the global economic downturn that began in late 2008.
Under the deal, Deutsche took a 20.55 per cent stake through Cathay Asset. The rest of the consortium includes Linden Capital, Orchard Capital and Octavian Advisors.
Linden took an 18.98 per cent stake in Jaya, while two funds of Orchard Capital acquired 10.11 per cent, and two funds of Octavian Advisors took 5.06 per cent.
‘We and our consortium partners are looking forward to Jaya Holdings continuing its existing business,’ Stephen Le, director of Cathay Asset Management, said in a statement late on Saturday.
‘We believe Jaya Holdings is well-positioned in the current global offshore oil exploration and production environment.’
In its year-end earnings report issued last August, Jaya posted a whopping $103.72 million in net profit, up from just $1.2 million for fiscal 2009.
Included were restructuring costs of $28.3 million, impairment charges and provision for associated shutdown costs for the Nantong Dongjiang Shipyard of $14.1 million and reversal of impairment losses and provisions for associated costs of $23.4 million.
For the previous financial year, impairment losses and provisions for associated costs of $99.4 million were made for certain projects after the group reconfigured its shipbuilding programme under its restructuring exercise.
Foreign exchange losses of $69.5 million were reported in fiscal 2009, against a $2.6 million gain in fiscal 2010.
For the year ended June 30, 2010, Jaya’s revenues jumped 36 per cent to $357.06 million on the strong performance of its shipbuilding/vessel sale business. But revenues from its offshore shipping division slipped 29 per cent to $64.1 million, and its conventional shipping division did not register any revenue.