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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Reuters
13 August 2011
A piecemeal ban on short-selling of financial stocks in Europe sparked a rush of alternative proposals from countries and regulators yesterday and investors said the row undermined a rally in bank shares.
France, Italy, Spain and Belgium imposed bans, which varied according to country, while Britain, the Netherlands and Austria said they saw no need for action. Germany said it would instead push for a Europe-wide one on so-called naked short-selling.
The European Commission said a European framework would be more attractive to deal with the issue, and the chairman of the European Securities and Markets Authority called on European policy-makers to adopt a plan for European-wide rules on short-selling ‘as quickly as possible’.
Short-selling is the process through which an investor borrows shares and sells them on the expectation their price will fall and they can be bought back at a lower price. In a naked short sale, the investor has not borrowed the share, but still bets on a drop in the share price.
The Stoxx 600 jumped 2.3 per cent to 235.19 at 2.42pm in London, extending its rally from a two-year low even as the benchmark measure headed for a weekly loss of 1.6 per cent.
French banks, at the centre of much of the market’s attention and included in the ban on short-selling, were up: Societe Generale rose 3.8 per cent, BNP Paribas added 4 per cent and Credit Agricole gained 1.8 per cent.
The banking index has fallen 36 per cent from a peak in February and is down some 17 per cent in August alone.
But market players said the ban did not tackle the root causes of investors’ concerns - joined-up, long-term fiscal policy in the eurozone - and pointed out that nervous mutual funds were currently behind the sell-off.
Lothar Mentel, chief investment officer at Octopus Investments, said the lack of co-ordinated action from national regulators on short-selling restrictions threatened to undo the temporary respite in the markets.
A crackdown on speculative short-selling is unlikely to arrest moves from institutional investors who have decided they have little stomach for big holdings in banks and indebted governments which might call on them again for emergency capital.
Alessandro Frigerio, fund manager at Milan’s RMJ Sgr, said the ban could work if, combined with proposals from next Tuesday’s meeting of French President Nicholas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, it were to ‘give the idea that there could be a rescue for the eurozone and a rebound in the market’.
This week’s market turmoil focused on speculation about French banks, which are heavily exposed to European countries at the centre of the region’s debt crisis. Societe Generale, France’s No 2 lender, has especially been in the eye of the storm.
But French 10-year bond yields dipped below 3 per cent yesterday for the first time since November, showing that demand for the country’s debt remained intact despite banking sector concerns.
Reassuring data from the European Central Bank’s overnight loan facility helped: the ECB said it totalled 227 million euros (S$392 million), much lower than the four billion euros borrowed the previous night, easing fears that banks were facing liquidity issues.
However, Danish Economics and Business Minister Brian Mikkelsen said several small Danish banks are facing a liquidity squeeze and the government is working on measures to make it safe for foreign investors to lend to them.
Germany said that only a wide-reaching ban on naked short-selling would do.
‘We are advocating a wide-reaching ban on naked short-selling of stocks, sovereign bonds and credit default swaps,’ Finance Ministry spokesman Martin Kotthaus said. ‘Only this way can destructive speculation be countered convincingly.’
The US move was of questionable value, according to several academic studies. While share borrowing fell during the three-week ban, financial stocks continued to plummet.