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...
Comments
Bloomberg
08 July 2015
For Chinese President Xi Jinping, mission No 1 has been preserving Communist Party rule. That now means stabilising the stock market.
Mr Xi’s government rushed out an unprecedented series of measures in recent days to halt a sell-off that wiped out US$3.2 trillion in market value in three weeks. Expect more stimulus efforts as the leadership under Mr Xi seeks to keep the collapse from devouring the savings of tens of millions of Chinese investors - a constituency larger than the ruling party - and from potentially setting off social unrest.
“This is a real testing moment for the leadership,” said Zhao Xijun, deputy dean of Renmin University’s School of Finance. “They must rescue the market with all their means. The ‘what if’ scenario cannot be allowed. The evaporation of fortunes of more than 80 million individual investors would pose unthinkable social problems for the country.”
The market rout poses one of Mr Xi’s thorniest challenges since he took power more than two years ago and gave himself control of China’s economic reform agenda. Overcoming it will require something more than the strongman approach he’s so far employed to consolidate power. He’ll have to restore confidence in the world’s most volatile stock market, months after cheerleading by state-run media helped spark the rally.
At stake is a decades-long economic boom that stands as the party’s crowning achievement, with growth on track this year for the slowest pace in a quarter century. Failure to stabilise the market would risk derailing the administration’s effort to rebalance the economy and give any dormant party foes an opening to criticise Mr Xi’s policies.
“China’s economic story and political stability are now very much at stake,” security analysts Gabe Collins and Andrew Erickson wrote in a report published on their China Signpost website. “Stock market down-drafts on the heels of euphoric upswings can be devastating to far more than pocketbooks. They sow fear and destroy confidence - the lifeblood of both economic growth and political stability.”
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index snapped a three-day losing streak on Monday, rising 2.4 per cent, though it gave back most of those gains in Tuesday trade. Over the weekend, the State Council under Premier Li Keqiang suspended initial public offerings while brokerages pledged to buy shares and the central bank pledged liquidity for margin trading.
Speaking at a conference, Mr Li said economic indicators for the first half of the year were “sound and steady” and authorities have “confidence and the ability to deal with all types of risks and challenges”, according to a report on the government’s official website.
The market slump comes at a time of heightened anxiety for the party. Parliament last week approved a sweeping national security law that cited the Internet, culture and outer space as potential areas of concern and outlined the government’s aim to “protect the political power of the people’s democratic dictatorship”. Mr Xi is overseeing the law as head of a new national security commission and as leader has shown little tolerance for dissent. His crackdown on corruption has seen him amass the most power of any recent Chinese leader, though social discord set off by a protracted market slide could damage the party’s control.
Top state media outlets and securities journals on Monday issued editorials calling for faith in the market and the government’s response. “Confidence is more precious than gold. That’s what Chinese investors need at this very moment: confidence, not panic,” the party-run People’s Daily said.