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 issu...
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It moves to buy shares as financial officials prepare for talks tomorrow
Reuters
06 August 2011
South Korea’s US$300 billion state pension fund, the world’s fourth-largest, muscled its way into markets yesterday to buy shares in a bid to stem a sell-off that had pushed Seoul stocks down almost 5 per cent amid a global market rout.
The move came as financial authorities in Seoul prepared for an emergency meeting tomorrow, although they sought to reassure investors there was no need to panic.
State funds had bought a net 273.1 billion won (S$312 million) worth of shares as at 0310 GMT, more than combined net buying of 247.6 billion on Wednesday, when their daily purchase was the biggest for at least a year, data from the Korea Exchange showed.
By midday, the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kopsi) had recouped some of its early losses but was still down 3.8 per cent as worries about the faltering US economy and Europe’s debt crisis prompted investors to dump riskier assets.
The won currency slid 0.5 per cent against the US dollar.
‘Sentiment worldwide is very bad. I don’t know when stocks will hit a bottom,’ said Chun Nam-joong, a fund manager at Consus Asset Management.
South Korea, Asia’s fourth- largest economy, is highly vulnerable to global capital outflows and was hit hard in the 2008 financial crisis.
The authorities have implemented measures such as limiting fund-raising in dollars by local companies to reduce vulnerability. However, the country’s banking sector still relies on short-term foreign borrowing as domestic private sector savings fall far short of growing loan demand.
In early 2009 amid the global financial crisis, South Korean five-year credit default swap spreads ballooned out to more than 450 basis points (bps), and investors warn that the country remained exposed to any sell-off. They currently trade at 118.67 bps.
‘The reversal in flows in a risk off environment could hurt the local currency markets due to capital outflows,’ Neeraj Seth, head of Asian credit investment fund BlackRock, warned earlier this week on South Korea, saying that liquidity was still not deep enough in the face of big capital outflows.
Market analysts cautioned, however, that there was little the authorities or state funds could do in the face of a sustained market meltdown.