No Signboard CEO Lim Yong Sim charged with share price rigging
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No Signboard's CEO and executive chairman Lim Yong Sim was charged with price rigging offences under the Securities and Futures Act.
PHOTO: ST FILE
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SINGAPORE - Lim Yong Sim, the executive chairman and chief executive of restaurant operator No Signboard Holdings, was charged with share price rigging offences under the Securities and Futures Act (SFA) on Thursday, the Singapore Police Force said.
If convicted, he may be jailed for up to seven years or fined up to $250,000, or both.
The charges arose from a joint investigation by white-collar crime busters, the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD), and the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Lim – the grandson of the founder of No Signboard – was charged with three counts of Section 197(1)(b) of the SFA for creating a false appearance related to the price of Catalist-listed No Signboard shares.
He had allegedly placed orders for No Signboard shares and traded in the shares using the trading account of Gugong Pte Ltd for the purpose of pushing up or supporting the stock’s prices between June 19 and 29, 2018, as well as between Nov 30, 2018, and Jan 11, 2019.
At the time, he was the director and the majority shareholder of Gugong. Lim is deemed to have about a 55 per cent interest in No Signboard through Gugong.
Additionally, on Jan 31, 2019, Lim allegedly placed orders for No Signboard shares and carried out trades using the company’s corporate trading account
On that day, a total of a million shares in the company were purchased, which caused the share price to surge 24 per cent, attracting a query from the Singapore Exchange.
In response to the regulator’s query, the company said Lim had made an “honest mistake” when the company shares were bought back at a price which exceeded the regulatory limit on share buyback prices.
To make matters worse, the shares were bought during a blackout period when dealings in the company’s securities were restricted.
Following the share buyback, No Signboard shares spiked on Feb 1, 2019. That afternoon, the company reported its first-quarter 2019 loss of $574,000. It also restated its first-quarter 2018 profit of $1.4 million to a loss of $415,000.
The company shares tumbled 30 per cent over the next three months, and another 25 per cent following investigations by the CAD and the arrest of Lim on April 30, 2019 for possible SFA breaches. At that time, Lim was not charged with any offence and subsequently released on bail.
No Signboard shares have been suspended from trading since Jan 24, 2022
The company had offered 65.7 million shares at 28 cents each in its initial public offer in November 2017, raising net proceeds of more than $18 million.
The shares were hovering at around three cents each before trading was suspended.
The company currently operates two food and beverage outlets in Singapore – Little Sheep Hotpot at Orchard Gateway and nosignboard Sheng Jian at Northpoint City.
All other F&B outlets formerly operated by No Signboard have been closed as the group liquidated its various loss-making and non-core subsidiaries due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The board of directors of No Signboard, which is in the process of a court-supervised restructuring exercise, has been actively searching for acquisitions and is in the final stages of discussions to buy two F&B businesses as part of its bid to resume trading, according to a bourse filing in June.
However, the company said it was facing “significant operational issues” given the ongoing dispute and defamation claims involving its directors and Lim.
It said: “Mr Lim is a joint signatory of certain of the group’s operational bank accounts. The differing opinions between the board and Mr Lim and coupled with the serious financial challenges faced by the group have made it more difficult for the group to pay the salaries of certain group employees and/or creditors of the group.”
