SINGAPORE: The former executive chairman and director of Kimly, one of Singapore's largest traditional coffee shop operators, were fined by a court on Wednesday for failing to disclose that its chairman had a 30 per cent stake in a company Kimly was acquiring.
At the time of the offences in 2018, Lim was the executive chairman of Kimly's board of directors, and a founding shareholder. He held about 42 per cent of Kimly's shares and oversaw the overall development and performance of the group. Around 2009 or 2010, Ong and Wang approached Kimly's Lim asking him to invest in ASC. In 2010, Lim invested around S$300,000 in ASC, but was never involved in its operations or management.
On Jul 2, 2018, Kimly announced that it had acquired all the shared and fully paid-up ordinary shares in the capital of ASC at a consideration of S$16 million, paid by Kimly to Wang in cash.This was after a valuation report was made for ASC, and after the proposed acquisition was approved by Kimly's board of directors in May 2018.
Chia also felt that the"window of opportunity" to disclose the transaction had been missed during the IPO of Kimly or initial discussions on the acquisition of ASC. When probed by investigators from the Commercial Affairs Department, Lim suggested that it is possible that he did not disclose his interest in ASC because if he did so, it might lead to questions about who owned the remaining 70 per cent of ASC's shares.