Sincap Group

[greengiraffe]

Singapore-listed Sincap grabs stake in Perth project
BEN WILMOT THE AUSTRALIAN AUGUST 14, 2014 12:00AM

THE Singapore-listed Sincap Group has expanded its Australian holdings by striking a deal to buy a stake in a South Perth mixed-use development in a play valuing the project at about $66 million.

The Singaporean group, which already has a Perth property, will buy investment holding firm LTN Land, which has a 59 per cent equity stake in the private Richardson 1 Pty Ltd.

The company is backing the One Richardson project, which consists of a 10-storey office building and a 14-storey development comprising 70 apartments, most of which have been pre-sold.

The remaining 41 per cent of the equity in the project will not be affected.

The development has been driven by long-time WA developer Devwest. Sincap’s group chief executive, Ng Hong Whee, ­already has an 18 per cent stake in LTN Land which he will sell as part of the deal.

[greengiraffe]

HSBC Australia clients lose millions to rogue adviser

• THE AUSTRALIAN
  
• OCTOBER 17, 2015 12:00AM
  

0

Leo Shanahan
[Image: leo_shanahan.png]
Reporter
Sydney

[Image: 198577-3cfa9c76-73dd-11e5-b19b-c7bb6212b90a.jpg]
The revelations are likely to be a further blow to the London-headquartered, but Asia-focused, HSBC.Source: Getty Images
[b]Customers in HSBC Australia had millions of dollars in personal investments disappear after one of its financial planners siphoned the money to a shady offshore ­investment vehicle.[/b]
An investigation by The Weekend Australian can reveal a former HSBC Australia financial planner used his role at the bank to have clients invest almost $3 million in savings into a Singaporean company run by a close friend and business colleague.
In a scandal spanning Sydney, Perth, Singapore and the British Virgin Islands, HSBC in Australia has been secretly pursuing financial planner Simson Kwok for ­clients’ funds that were invested while he was an employee of the bank using HSBC accounts, systems and premises.
While at least eight clients of Mr Kwok with investments worth about $3m have been identified so far by the bank, HSBC appears unable to fully account for how many clients or how much money has fallen foul of the former ­planner, who was employed by the bank for five years.
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.

• MOREPlanner saw himself as victim
  

End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
The revelations are likely to be a further blow to the London-headquartered, but Asia-focused, HSBC as it tries to rebuild its reputation following a series of global scandals ranging from money laundering to helping customers avoid scrutiny of tax authorities.
The bank, one of the biggest of the international lenders in ­Australia, is known for its wealthy client base. According to documents from the internal HSBC probe obtained by The Weekend Australian, the bank labelled Mr Kwok and his ­accomplice Nicholas Zheng’s ­actions as an attempt “to dishonestly and illegitimately defraud the customers by procuring the transfer of the ­customers’ funds in respect of the unauthorised investments into the defendants’ accounts”.
Two civil cases were quietly brought and then dropped by HSBC against Mr Kwok and the Zheng company in Sydney and Singapore in a bid to recover the funds. Mr Kwok is understood to be still in Australia but is yet to face any charges from police or the securities regulator despite HSBC becoming aware of his activities more than 18 months ago.
Documents from the internal HSBC investigation, and filed with Singapore’s civil court, show clients were convinced to move their investments into a company named Lionbridge Group, which some clients were told was part of a Perth building project, and others a Singapore-based high-yield fund making mining investments.
Once client funds were placed in HSBC accounts they were transferred to the Singaporean Standard Chartered Bank accounts of Lionbridge Capital (also known as Lionbridge Asset Management) — the Singapore-based company set up by Mr Kwok’s long-time friend Mr Zheng.
Customers had their investments refunded by HSBC last year after pursuing Lionbridge to freeze its funds, but it is unclear whether customers had their own investments returned or were merely refunded by the bank after discontinuing the Singapore case.
The developments come just weeks after HSBC’s Sydney headquarters faced a series of visits by a US government monitoring team as part of an agreement that the bank struck with US regulators to avoid criminal prosecution after it was used by Mexican and Colombian drug cartels and pariah states to launder billions of dollars through its accounts.
The US team was led by compliance monitor David Cherkasky, who was heading up a global ­investigation into HSBC practices after it was fined $US1.9 billion ($2.6bn) by US authorities as well as being criticised for facilitating tax-free havens in Switzerland. HSBC has not said whether the independent monitor was made aware of the Kwok case.
Banks have been under pressure for their handling of financial planners after a crackdown by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission and the government following scandals in recent years. Representatives of both the Commonwealth Bank and National Australia Bank have faced Senate committees to explain their behaviour.
None of the HSBC clients who spoke to The Weekend Australian has been interviewed by police or the ASIC, and HSBC has not said if or when police and ASIC were notified of the situation. HSBC Australia said: “Because of confidentially we are ­unable to comment on our relationships with customers.” HSBC stressed the “individual is no longer an employee and we are working with authorities on the matter”.
“No client will be out of pockets as a result of this and if any clients are concerned they should contact us,” HSBC said. The eight identified clients of Mr Kwok were four elderly couples, often with limited English, who entrusted their life savings to the bank and told bank investigators they ­invested with HSBC because “it was a reputable bank”.
Another elderly couple is understood to have been discovered in August this year and owed another $800,000. This has prompted further civil court action by the bank in an attempt to have Mr Kwok and Mr Zheng reveal the whereabouts “of all HSBC or HSBC customer funds ... transferred from any HSBC account or ­investment” during Mr Kwok’s five years at the bank.
Most customers had been clients of HSBC in Perth and Mr Kwok for several years and had previously invested in safe products, with the majority holding Challenger annuities set up by Mr Kwok and HSBC.
The manager of HSBC’s fraud prevention unit told the Singaporean court that despite claiming to be registered in Singapore “it appears that LAM is not a company incorporated in Singapore”. Searches in Singapore revealed Lionbridge’s registered offices to be a corporate secretarial service in the heart of Singapore’s luxury Orchard shopping district. Lionbridge said Mr Zheng was out of the country.

Clients were first alerted to the disappearance of their investment early last year — a few weeks after Mr Kwok resigned from the bank in December 2013 — when they could not contact Mr Kwok and strange “interest payments” began to appear in their account.
At Mr Kwok’s home in the outer-Perth suburb of East Cannington, the front of which features at least three security cameras, the inhabitants declined to talk ­yesterday.
“We’re not interested,” said a male voice behind the closed front door.
Additional reporting: Paul Garvey, Simon Kearney

[greengiraffe]

Has mata been informed and been on the trail?

Or has mata been asleep?

HSBC financial planner saw himself as the victim of the saga

• THE AUSTRALIAN
  
• OCTOBER 17, 2015 12:00AM
  

0

Leo Shanahan
[Image: leo_shanahan.png]
Reporter
Sydney

[Image: 148162-284f0298-73a7-11e5-aecd-070d43501fda.jpg]
HSBC clients were asked to sign confidential legal agreements. Source: News Limited
[b]Simson Kwok was offered a lifeline by HSBC’s fraud investigators.[/b]
“What would stop us from going to the police?” asked Michelle Chapman, then assistant manager of the HSBC Australia financial crimes investigations.
“OK, I’ll be honest. But we have to turn the tape recorder off,” Kwok asked.
“OK, let’s be honest?” Chapman obliged by turning the tape recorder off.
“What I’m going to tell you can get me put in jail in Singapore.”
According to this confidential account of the February 2013 HSBC internal interview obtained by The Weekend Australian, the 32-year-old Perth-based financial planner painted himself as a victim, struggling to explain why almost $2 million in client funds had disappeared to a Singaporean company run by his friend Nicholas Zheng.
The amount of funds lost by HSBC has since ballooned to almost $3m, with the bank now unsure of how much more may have been lost in investments to the mysterious “Lionbridge Group”.
He told customers Lionbridge invested in Perth real estate and Asian mining companies; he offered all a minimum 10 per cent return on their investment.
Kwok said the investment in Lionbridge was HSBC-approved, and those elderly clients from non-English- speaking backgrounds who entrusted their life savings to Kwok would later tell internal investigators they invested with HSBC because “it was a reputable bank”.
During their interview Kwok told investigators that a few weeks after he had left HSBC he had been called to Singapore in January 2014 by his old university friend Nicholas Zheng.
Kwok outlined a scheme whereby he purchased a British Virgin Islands company named “Estelle Success Corp” for $2.5 million — an amount similar to that which was transferred to Zheng’s Lionbridge investments from HSBC clients.
Zheng allegedly told Kwok that he needed him to buy the company so it could purchase a half-share in a Singapore-listed company named Sincap Group Limited.
“Mr Zheng said he could not buy the shares in Sincap because it was illegal for him to do so. This was because Lionbridge is the underwriter of Sincap, Mr Zheng is a director of Lionbridge and the CEO of Sincap was a relative of the Mr Zheng,” Kwok allegedly told Chapman.
He went on to claim that the $2.55m purchase price for the British Virgin Islands company was paid by Zheng’s relatives and that he personally stood to get just $12,000 from the deal when the share purchase was finalised.
“As part of the contract I am not allowed to tell anyone about the share purchase and I am not allowed to transfer the share out of my name. I can’t even tell my wife,” Kwok claimed.
Earlier in the interview Chapman had seemed certain Kwok was using investor funds to make the purchase, pointing out the purchase of 46 million shares in Sincap showed up on the Singaporean stock exchange public ­database.
“There is about $2,100,000 of HSBC customer funds that you have invested and we know from announcement to the Singapore Stock Exchange that you purchased $2,500,000 worth of shares in Sincap. That look like you have taken customer funds and invested them,” she told him.
At the end of the interview Chapman asks Kwok to “go away, get the information regarding the investment and get document to show where the funds went”.
“We need to find out where the investments went,” she told him. She concluded her affidavit noting “Mr Kwok has not come back to me with any of the documentation requested.”
Why Chapman and HSBC didn’t go to the police last year over Kwok remains unclear, but nobody present at those two February interviews with Kwok works at HSBC any more.
Chapman left HSBC after 12 years with the bank in April 2014 — two months after Kwok’s actions came to light. When contacted by The Weekend Australian she said: “HSBC were very good to me. I’m not going to give you a story.”
Regional manager for Western Australia HSBC, Adrian Momber, was also present at the interview and he left HSBC the same month. He could not be contacted for comment.
HSBC has not said whether the pair resigned or were pushed for their handling of Kwok.
Kwok’s scheme forms part of a pattern of poor behaviour from financial planners employed by banks in Australia.
It is also of particular concern for HSBC as they have been in the global spotlight for poor corporate governance. HSBC in Australia were recently paid a visit by an independent monitoring team as part of a $US1.9 billion settlement with the US Department of Justice after its accounts were found to be laundering hundreds of millions in drug cartel funds.
Of the former Kwok clients that have been willing to speak to The Weekend Australian none has been contacted by police or the corporate watchdog ASIC.
Clients were first alerted to the disappearance of their investment in early 2014 — a few weeks after Kwok resigned from the bank in December 2013 — when they couldn’t get in touch with Kwok and strange “interest payments” started to appear in their accounts.
The transaction struck several clients as strange as it was from Kwok’s personal account and in odd amounts.
By January several clients had become nervous about their investments after they were unable to get in touch with Kwok, and an internal investigation into Kwok was launched by HSBC’s Fraud Prevention and Operations Unit in mid-February 2014, two months after he resigned.
Despite initially denying any unauthorised investments, under questioning from Chapman he admitted he had placed the money with his Lionbridge and his old friend Zheng in Singapore.
When he was first called into the interview in February and was asked why he had made unauthorised investments, he replied: “I am just trying to help my customers, who are always asking for better investments.”
Rather than informing police or commencing legal action HSBC then attempted to negotiate with Lionbridge in Singapore for the return of the funds.
HSBC clients were asked to sign confidential legal agreements in which HSBC said they would “stand behind our clients who appear to have made investments through us” in return for allowing the bank to act on their behalf.
After days of delays and exchanges with Lionbridge, HSBC legal counsel Mathew Fuentes issued his final demand in writing on March 4 last year.
Legal action was commenced by HSBC in NSW Supreme Court and Singapore Supreme Court two days later.
Do you know more? Contact leo@theaustralian.com.au

[cyclone]

Sincap Group Limited is principally engaged in the trading of alumina and thermal coal, as well as the mining and sale of gypsum, in the PRC.
The Group began its core operations in gypsum mining in 1999, and has since grown into one of the leading players in the PRC gypsum industry. It possesses mining and exploration rights to some of the largest gypsum reserves in the Dawenkou Gypsum District in Shandong Province.

In 2005, the Group expanded its operations into alumina trading, and started trading in coal in 2011. The Group has since established a wide network of suppliers and customers in the PRC for these commodities.

Subsequent to the shareholders’ approval for the Group’s business diversification, the Group has diversified its business into property development and property investment since July 2014.

Website : http://www.sincapgroup.com.sg

Proposed Change of Auditors
Reason : The Company has, as part of its operating costs management, performed a review on, inter alia, its professional audit fees and has obtained various competitive quotes on the Company’s audit fees in relation to the Group’s audit for the financial year ending 31 December 2015 (“FY2015”). Accordingly, the audit fees quoted by Baker Tilly in respect of the FY2015 audit is lower than that of RSM Chio Lim’s. Further, RSM Chio Lim has been the Company’s auditors since financial year ended 31 December 2010.
...

[greengiraffe]

Hi Admin/cyclone,

Kindly merged this thread with the one that cyclone started y'day.

GG

[CityFarmer]

Hi Admin/cyclone,

Kindly merged this thread with the one that cyclone started y'day.

GG

Done.

Regards
Moderator CF

[beau]

An unknown buyer entered into agreement to acquire Beijing Raffles Investment Advisory Co., Ltd from Sincap Group Limited (Catalist:5UN) for SGD 10 million.
Source: Capital IQ Transaction Database
Type: M&A Transaction Announcements
From: 12/Jun/2017

An unknown buyer entered into agreement to acquire Beijing Raffles Investment Advisory Co., Ltd from Sincap Group Limited (Catalist:5UN) for SGD 10 million on June 12, 2017. Beijing Raffles Investment Advisory Co., Ltd reported net assets of SGD 7.3 million (CNY 35.8 million) and net loss of SGD 1.3 million (CNY 6.6 million) as on December 31, 2016. The Board of Directors of Beijing Raffles Investment Advisory Co., Ltd consider the transaction in best interest of Sincap Group Limited. The transaction is subject to filing and registration with the Ministry of Commerce of Chaoyang District, Beijing Municipality, approval by shareholders of Sincap Group Limited and other conditions. The transaction is expected to close on August 31, 2017. The proceeds from the proposed disposal will be used to expand the business of Sincap Group Limited subsidiary – Orion Energy Resources Pte. Ltd. and will also be used for the working capital of Orion.

In a nutshell, Sincap has sold a stake in its mining subsidiary for $10 million. Their current market cap is only at about $14 million. Their net current asset value as at FY2016 is about $18.2 million. Does this mean that with the sale of its mining subsidiary, their net current asset value will be $28.2 million, valuing themselves at about 0.5x NCAV? The company is loss making but cash flow from operations has been positive in the FY2015 and FY2016.

[beau]

Up about 30% today since my posting less than 2 weeks ago. Unsure if there have been any fundamental changes in the period inbetween.