Convicted market maker Huang Yiwen testifies to ‘marking the close’ at Goh Jin Hian’s criminal trial

SINGAPORE - Convicted GTC Group sole director Huang Yiwen testified to “marking the close”, or placing orders near the end of the trading day, to artificially inflate the closing price of New Silkroutes Group (NSG) shares on several trading days, the State Courts heard on Feb 9.

Huang, the prosecution’s second witness, took the stand on the third day of the criminal trial of Goh Jin Hian, the former chief executive of Singapore-listed NSG, and Kelvyn Oo Cheong Kwan, its former chief corporate officer.

Huang was in August 2025 sentenced to jail for two years, three months and two weeks, after he pleaded guilty to 24 charges under the Securities and Futures Act, with another 88 charges taken into consideration for sentencing.

In September 2023, Huang was

charged along with Goh

, the son of former prime minister Goh Chok Tong; Oo, a corporate lawyer by training; and former finance director William Teo Thiam Chuan. They were handed a total of 132 charges related to false trading offences.

On Feb 9, Huang testified that he had to “do what he was instructed” to try to get NSG’s share price over 40 cents, even though he was not obligated in GTC’s contract with NSG to do so. This was because he “needed the funds”, as he was “suffering losses from other counters” for which he was providing market-making services.

“They already paid the contract, and I was already involved in it. I was briefed by them that I need to support all this before they agreed to sign the contract and give me the deposit,” Huang said.

GTC is a commercial market maker that New Silkroutes had engaged to help ensure there was enough liquidity in the markets. It charged NSG $60,000 a month in service fees and collected a three-month deposit of $180,000, as it needed the funds to provide market-making services.

Huang said he was introduced to Teo at a drinking function by someone from Haitong Securities, and met Teo again about a month or two later to discuss what GTC does, its fees and structure.

A third meeting was held at NSG with Goh, Oo and Teo in February 2018.

At this meeting, Goh allegedly told Huang about NSG’s share price being undervalued because of a “conflict with one shareholder” who was unhappy about Goh’s move to expand into the medical field, and therefore was “dumping his shares” and pushing the share price down.

This shareholder, whose identity Huang said he does not know, purportedly wanted NSG to be a financial company.

When asked by Deputy Public Prosecutor Suhas Malhotra why it was important to boost NSG’s share price, Huang said Goh and Teo told him that “they had done a placement” earlier and did not want the share price to be lower than the placement price because “it won’t look good for the company”. Boosting the share price would also allow NSG to “do other corporate actions in future”.

Huang also told the men that it would take three to six months for market making to have a positive impact on NSG’s shares.

When asked how quickly Goh, Teo and Oo expected results, Huang said they “needed results immediately. They don’t want the share price to be low”.

Shortly after GTC received the deposit on Feb 23, 2018, Teo and Huang had hoped to push NSG’s share price above 47 cents.

“But the shareholder who was unhappy... sold his shares and NSG opened at 39 cents” instead, Huang said.

Huang testified that “marking the close” was done to make it “easier for the company to do placements or corporate actions”.

A placement is when a company issues shares at a certain price to an individual or an institution.

Corporate actions referred to the company’s plans to buy more clinics, he added.

New Silkroutes was initially in the businesses of oil trading, and electronic and IT product distribution. In December 2016, it decided to move into healthcare, and acquired several clinics and medical supply firms the following year.

Huang said he tried to “mark the market close at 34.5 cents” at one point because that was “the instruction given” to him by Teo. After he achieved “the goal of the day to mark the price at 34.5 cents,” he received “a thumbs up” via WhatsApp from Teo on March 13, 2018.

But by March 28, 2018, NSG’s share price had dropped to below 30 cents because of “very heavy selling,” and because Huang had limited “ammo” or funds to push up the closing price.

Huang then began getting WhatsApp messages from Teo telling him to “start moving the share price higher because it is too low” at 28-plus cents.

DPP Malhotra noted that at one point, Huang had placed bids on 300,000 shares, even though GTC’s contract with NSG stated that the minimum number of quoted shares was 3,000.

That meant that at any time, the minimum number of quoted shares would be 3,000 on bids and 3,000 on offers. Huang testified earlier that he had decided on this number because he “knew NSG has been suspended but didn’t know how illiquid the stock is”.

“If the minimum number of quoted shares is too high... it will be very hard for me to exit. We are a trading firm, so we prefer not to hold stocks for the long term,” he said.

At an April 9, 2018, meeting with Teo, Huang said Teo wanted NSG’s share price to be higher, and that “they were unhappy with GTC’s performance”.

Teo again expressed unhappiness that the share price had dropped back to 29 cents on April 27, 2018, when it was supposed to reach 32 or 33 cents.

According to Huang, Teo had told him that “if this carries on, problems will arise as our stock continues to trade below 30 cents”.

He added: “(Teo told me) I should have spent money to buy over 500,000 shares to get NSG’s share price up to 32 cents.”

On May 22, 2018, Teo sent Huang WhatsApp messages asking for his strategy, noting that NSG’s share price “can’t keep going below 30 cents. Many questions asked now”.

Huang said: “There was no demand for NSG shares but the supply is huge, so the share price kept coming down.”

When asked by the DPP what Teo expected of him, Huang replied: “He was expecting me to keep the share price above 30 cents by placing more bids and (absorbing) the selling pressure.”

The trial continues on Feb 10.