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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Kenneth Lim
11 October 2013
Shares of key executives of Blumont Group have come under forced selling as Singapore Exchange (SGX) maintains trading restrictions on the company’s stock and those of two others for a fifth day today.
Meanwhile, SGX said it is investigating short-selling in two stocks that took place on Monday despite a market ban on such trades, while most Singapore brokers have given clients extra time to close out positions that were caught by the curbs, traders said.
Losses from the restrictions on those stocks are expected to be fairly muted and spread out among most of the brokers, although concern is higher that one or two houses could have significantly more exposure than the rest, observers said.
SGX on Oct 4 undertook a rare intervention by querying six companies and, before they could reply, suspended trading in three of them - Asiasons Capital, Blumont Group and LionGold Corp - as their stocks plunged right out of the open.
Trading in the suspended stocks resumed on Monday, but with SGX-imposed rules banning short-selling and requiring cash settlement upfront.
But some investors apparently attempted to short Asiasons and Blumont despite the curbs on Monday. SGX’s daily buying-in report yesterday morning showed that 53,000 Asiasons shares and 73,000 Blumont shares could not be delivered by short-sellers and had to be bought in.
“We will be investigating these cases and take the appropriate disciplinary actions as necessary,” SGX head of market surveillance Kelvin Koh said.
Late yesterday, key executives of Blumont, a product sterilisation company seeking to move into the mining business, announced that they had been forced to sell shares and rights over the past few sessions.
Executive chairman Neo Kim Hock on Tuesday was forced to dispose of 2.2 million shares at an average of 13.53 cents apiece, or $297,726 in total. Blumont shares closed at 20 cents yesterday.
Mr Neo had already been in the spotlight for revealing on Monday that he was forced to sell about $17 million of rights and shares between Oct 2 and 7.
Blumont executive director James Hong Gee Ho was also forced to sell 4.3 million shares between 15.42 and 15.85 cents apiece for a total of $679,627.50 between Tuesday and Wednesday.
Director Lynne Ng Su Ling on Wednesday was also forced to sell 500,000 shares at 13.96 cents each for a total of $69,800.
All those shares were held through nominees.
The exchange did not give a timeline as to when trading restrictions will be lifted. “SGX will continue to monitor closely the market in the three designated securities,” Mr Koh said. “We will assess the trading conditions and lift the designation as soon as it is appropriate to do so.”
SGX told Bloomberg that it plans to have dynamic circuit breakers available by early 2014, subject to regulatory approvals. The exchange in June had been hoping to have the tool in place by end-2013.
The question of how much losses brokers are facing could take a while to answer, especially with houses giving clients some more time to settle their positions given the unusual circumstances.
“I can see some of the letters going out, initial letters saying please pay up, then after 14 days the letter will be harsher, so it could be some time,” one trader said.
Analyst Kenneth Ng of CIMB said he was not concerned about the exposure of the three local banks - DBS Group Holdings, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp and United Overseas Bank - given that the losses are likely to be only a fraction of the roughly $8.4 billion of market value that has been wiped out from the three designated stocks between the end of Oct 3 and yesterday.
“It’s not a small amount, but it’s going to be split across all the brokers . . . and typically what will happen is those with a bigger retail franchise will suffer more,” Mr Ng added.
But current DMG chief executive Robert Huray told BT: “DMG’s financials, business and operations remain sound and have not been impacted significantly by the recent activities on the Singapore Exchange.”