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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By Robert McTeer, Forbes
06 August 2011
S&P, I don’t get it.
Okay. I understand that our finances are a mess and our political system is broken. We just missed a good chance to improve things significantly, and we chose, instead, to improve things marginally. Several times, our leaders snatched defeat from victory. Neither side could say yes. Yet, they did the minimum and avoided default.
The United States of America pays its debts. It may not pursue sound fiscal policies. It may not be a paragon of fiscal virtue. But it will redeem its bonds. It’s finances may be in tatters, but its credit is not in doubt. It might be, theoretically, if it didn’t have its own currency and its own central bank. But it does have them, and we are the United States of America.
Isn’t a credit agency supposed to opine on the probability of a debtor paying its debts? What difference does it make that it looks silly getting in a position to do so? What difference does it make if the central bank is called upon, or if monetization of its debt leads to inflation? Not that it will. A credit agency doesn’t grade fiscal rectitude. It doesn’t grade inflation probabilities. It’s supposed to grade the probability of the repayment of its debts.
Downgrading the United States of America doesn’t make up for top ratings for mortgage backed securities filled with toxic subprime mortgages. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Enough damage has already been done. Looks to me like Standard and Poor’s is well named.