Companies

Equity tunneling in Korea/Asia: Infovine chief accused of harming shareholders’ values by issuing “needless” bond warrants; “With that issuance, Kwon arranged to receive 70% of the newly issued warrants at a deeply undervalued price, resulting in dilution for all other shareholders”

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http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2015/03/488_175953.html

Updated : 2015-03-26 18:22

Infovine chief accused of harming shareholders’ values

By Kim Jae-won

Edouard Mercier, head of Hong Kong-based hedge fund Ascender Capital, said Thursday that the CEO of a local IT company Infovine harmed the interests of minority shareholders by issuing “needless” bond warrants (BW) in August 2013.
Mercier, investment principal of Ascender, said the mobile certificate storage service company’ shares are trading at about 50 percent of its potential value due to the company’s poor corporate governance.  Continue reading →

Daewoo E&C plunges on accounting fraud allegation

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http://news.mk.co.kr/newsRead.php?year=2015&no=286524

Daewoo E&C plunges on accounting fraud allegation

26 March 2015

Maeil Business Newspaper

Shares in Daewoo Engineering & Construction plunged Thursday morning on concerns that the builder may receive a sanction for possible accounting fraud. The company’s stock price sank 7.43 percent to trade at 7,600 won at 10:55 a.m. Sources said financial authorities found a clue that the builder committed accounting irregularities worth more than 1.4 trillion won ($1.27 billion) and are poised to impose a sanction. A local media reported the Financial Supervisory Service will bring the case to a review committee. Daewoo Engineering & Construction and its accounting firm are declining the accounting fraud allegation.

Stock manipulation: ICVL Chemicals, up nearly 100 times or 9841% in just over a year with marginal profits

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http://www.moneylife.in/article/stock-manipulation-icvl-chemicals/40837.html

Stock manipulation: ICVL Chemicals

19 March 2015

Moneylife

ICVL Chemicals went up nearly 100 times or 9841% in just over a year with marginal profits

ICVL Chemicals was earlier into trading of chemicals, shares and providing ‘advisory and consultancy services’. Listed in 2012, the company’s management changed hands in May 2014. Ram Alloy Castings became the new promoter. In January 2015, the registered office of ICVL Chemicals was shifted from Mumbai to Delhi and mineral extraction was included as additional business. With almost nil revenues reported in FY12-13 and FY13-14, ICVL Chemicals has begun to report revenues in the past two quarters. For the quarter ended September 2014 and December 2014, revenues were Rs4.09 crore and Rs8.30 crore, respectively. Net profit was just Rs5 lakh and Rs9 lakh, respectively. But does any of this have any bearing on its stock prices? The share price has risen from Rs2.20 on 13 December 2013 to as high as Rs218.70 on 5 March 2015—a rise of nearly 100 times or 9841%. Over the one-year period ended December 2014, the stock averaged just two-three trades a day, most of the time hitting the upper circuit. This is clearly a case of money laundering and tax evasion. At the current price, the stock is valued at a price-to-earnings of about 7,046 times. Will the regulators and tax authorities care to investigate?

Hanergy’s soaring share price raises questions; Hong Kong authorities need to satisfy themselves on the solar group

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http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/133f0c24-d2e2-11e4-b7a8-00144feab7de.html#axzz3VT7ltQpF

March 25, 2015 7:12 pm

Hanergy’s soaring share price raises questions; Hong Kong authorities need to satisfy themselves on the solar group

Hanergy

A Financial Times investigation over the past few weeks has shone a light on Hanergy, a Beijing-based solar business. One of a host of Chinese ventures that have achieved listings in Hong Kong in recent years, the company stands out mainly for the explosiveness of its stock price performance. Shares in Hanergy Thin Film, its 73 per cent owned Hong Kong-quoted subsidiary, have risen by about 1,800 per cent since the beginning of 2013. Continue reading →

Hanergy: The 10-minute trade and unusual trading patterns over the past two years

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http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9e87ba44-d20e-11e4-a1a0-00144feab7de.html#axzz3VMdmNnHz

March 24, 2015 10:00 pm

Hanergy: The 10-minute trade

Miles Johnson and Gavin Jackson

FT analysis highlights unusual trading patterns over the past two years

HanergyHanergy_HFT

For the past two years, 3.50pm in Hong Kong has been a golden moment in the soaring fortunes of Hanergy Thin Film Power Group, the $35.5bn solar company that has transformed its owner into China’s richest man. A Financial Times analysis of two years of trading data of Hanergy Thin Film stock — more than 800,000 individual trades on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange — shows that shares consistently surged late in the day, about 10 minutes before the exchange’s close, from the start of 2013 until February this year. Continue reading →

Iceberg: “Not the first time we acted as whistleblower against Noble”; “Had the MPA acted on the information sent to them, this high-profile bankruptcy of OW Bunker… could certainly have been avoided”; “Iceberg’s research is based on public information released by Noble themselves. We consulted our lawyer and we are extremely confident.”

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http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/companies-markets/iceberg-not-the-first-time-we-acted-as-whistleblower-against-noble

Iceberg: ‘Not the first time we acted as whistleblower against Noble’

Melissa Tan

24 March 2015

Business Times Singapore

OBSCURE outfit Iceberg Research said in its third report on Noble Group that this is not the first time that it is acting as a whistleblower against the commodities trader. Referring to the bankruptcy of Danish bunker supplier OW Bunker in 2014, it claimed that a member of Iceberg had in 2013 “reported Noble’s commercial practices in Singapore to the Maritime Port Authority (MPA)”. It alleged that “Noble had been associated with some less than reputable local companies” and that while “the decision was taken by MPA not to renew (Noble’s bunkering) licence”, Noble was not fined. Iceberg also said that its member later informed MPA that the supposed “illegal activities” had continued, Noble was allegedly “still involved”, and the unnamed “local companies” in question had become major bunker suppliers in Singapore. Those “local companies and people that our colleague had reported to the MPA were directly responsible for the fraudulent bankruptcy of OW Bunker” in 2014, Iceberg claimed. “Had the MPA acted on the information sent to them, this high-profile bankruptcy… could certainly have been avoided.” OW Bunker, the world’s biggest bunker supplier and Denmark’s second-biggest listed company by revenue, filed for bankruptcy in November 2014, blaming fraud by two senior employees at a Singapore-based unit, Dynamic Oil Trading. It estimated the alleged fraud to be worth US$125 million, and also reported a US$150 million risk management loss. OW Bunker went into liquidation after its banks refused to extend credit. Noble, which has filed a suit in Hong Kong, said in a Singapore Exchange statement on Monday in response to Iceberg’s claims that “we reject their allegations as inaccurate, unreliable and misleading”. The MPA did not respond to Iceberg’s allegations by press time. Continue reading →

Goldin Financial’s meteoric gains raise questions over what is fueling the rally

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http://www.wsj.com/articles/hong-kong-has-goldin-touch-heard-on-the-street-1426842391

Hong Kong Has a Goldin Touch

Goldin Financial’s meteoric gains raise questions over what is fueling the rally

Goldin Financial’s fivefold share-price increase in the past year has made its owner, Pan Sutong, one of the richest men in Hong Kong.PHOTO: BLOOMBERG NEWS

JACKY WONG

Updated March 20, 2015 6:45 a.m. ET

AM-BI134A_GOLDI_16U_20150320055106

Hong Kong’s stock market has become a factory for overnight billionaires. It is probably not the sort of wealth that will stand the test of time. The most prominent case is Hanergy Thin Film Power, a solar company whose meteoric rise and curious business model has made its founder, Li Hejun, the richest man in China, by Forbes’s count. Hanergy, under suspicion in local media that someone is manipulating the stock, issued a statement Thursday to explain the rally, attributing it to a number of factors, including bullish brokerage research reports.

Another company is nipping at Hanergy’s heels. Goldin Financial, controlled by Hong Kong businessman Pan Sutong, has risen fivefold in share price in the past year. Mr. Pan is now the fourth-richest person in Hong Kong, according to Forbes. Goldin is larger than the combined value ofBank of East Asia, Hong Kong’s biggest independent local bank, and Cathay Pacific,the city’s flagship airline. Mr. Pan’s other holdings include a company that is building a 117-story skyscraper, the tallest in northern China, ringed by the country’s largest polo complex.

Goldin Financial provides short-term corporate financing known as factoring. It also owns wineries in France and California, wine storage in China and invests in property. For this, it trades at 116 times 2014 earnings. Nearly all of its profits last year came from fair-value gains on a commercial building in the Kowloon Bay area of Hong Kong that is under construction. Strip that out, and its price-to-earnings ratio is more than 1,000. Continue reading →

CVC Capital has secured a court order freezing the assets of a flamboyant Chinese restaurant owner who sold a majority stake in her company South Beauty to the European private equity group last year for $300m; “very substantial sums had been paid by [CVC] and it is still unknown where those sums now are”

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http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/72ff66d8-ce44-11e4-9712-00144feab7de.html#axzz3UttnY9WF

March 19, 2015 4:31 pm

CVC freezes Chinese restaurateur’s assets

Tom Mitchell in Beijing and Joseph Cotterill in London

CVC Capital has secured a court order freezing the assets of a flamboyant Chinese restaurant owner who sold a majority stake in her company to the European private equity group last year for $300m. The order, granted on March 6, was directed against Zhang Lan and two other respondents, Grand Lan Holdings Group (BVI) Limited and South Beauty Development Limited. Last April, CVC said it had taken an 83 per cent stake in Ms Zhang’s South Beauty restaurant chain, but the two parties are now involved in an arbitration case.

In giving reasons for his decision to grant the order, Hong Kong High Court Justice Andrew Chung rejected Ms Zhang’s argument that there was “insufficient evidence of a real risk of dissipation of assets”. Justice Chung instead noted that “very substantial sums had been paid by [CVC] and it is still unknown where those sums now are . . . Money is, of course, a relatively liquid form of asset.” Continue reading →

Share manipulation scheme unveiled? Ex-staffer behind selling of Civmec shares?

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http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/companies-markets/ex-staffer-behind-selling-of-civmec-shares

Ex-staffer behind selling of Civmec shares?

Melissa Tan

19 March 2015

Business Times Singapore

THE sharp drop in shares of Australian engineering services firm Civmec this week is said to be possibly due to selling by a former employee. The counter dived 29 per cent or 14.5 cents to end at 35.5 cents on Wednesday after the bourse warned in the morning that investors trading in Civmec should be cautious. This tumble followed a 16 per cent slide in the share price from 58 cents last Friday to 50 cents on Tuesday. Trading volumes have also spiked over the past two days. The number of shares changing hands jumped from slightly more than 300,000 on Monday to 1.9 million on Tuesday and then 4.9 million on Wednesday, which was the highest daily level since September 2013 according to Bloomberg data. Continue reading →