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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Alex Frangos, WSJ
17 March 2014
Singapore’s stock exchange felt it needed to clarify the issue. “Media commentaries” had noticed that the share price of agricultural trader Olam International had a nearly 40% run-up in the six weeks before a group led by Singapore state fund Temasek announced a bid for the company. Others noticed, too, including Carson Block of Muddy Waters, who had previously fingered Olam as a fraud—accusations it vociferously denied.
“The stock has inexplicably outperformed in the past month,” Mr. Block said in an email.
So what of the pre-deal rally? The Singapore Exchange looked into it and found an explanation: Seven of Olam’s 13 analysts increased price targets in February.
It’s worth noting that Olam’s analysts haven’t been terribly good at predicting the stock’s direction. Even after all those upgrades, the consensus target was only 1.68 Singapore dollars (US$1.33), according to FactSet, just a single Singapore cent higher than at the start of the year and far below the S$2 the stock hit just before the deal was announced. Back in November 2012, before Mr. Block’s accusations, analysts had a consensus of S$2.33. The stock then plunged to S$1.40, not reaching that consensus price, ever. Temasek’s buyout bid is priced at S$2.23. Nobody said explaining markets is easy, but this begs another look.