Monday 24 March 2014

Kamdar: "It's a messy family affair"

The cover story of The Edge Malaysia of March 24, 2014:

A contractor, RM 8.7m & wrangling
in the House of Kamdar

A very confusing story about the Kamdar family, their listed company, and a certain contractor Yap Kim Hong, who claims that the shares in his account were held as a proxy.

I can't follow the story, too many parties involved, too many contradicting or vague statements.

However, there is one particular paragraph which sounded rather alarming, and Bursa Malaysia issued a query regarding that matter:


Reference is made to Bursa's query on the following statement under paragraph three (3) of page 70 in the article in The Edge Malaysia entitled "Wrangling In The House Of Kamdar" dated 24 March - 30 March 2014 :-

"The RM5.7 million was part of RM8.7 million taken out of [subsidiary] Kamdar Sdn Bhd in 2005"

The Company wishes to clarify that the Board of Directors has taken legal advice on the matter and has been and continues investigating the matter and is in the process of gathering evidence of the wrongdoing and will take any and all the necessary steps including taking steps to recover any monies withdrawn without authorization or unlawfully.


The following announcement indicated already that a family squabble was going on:


LETTER TO SHAREHOLDERS IN RELATION TO THE
CALLING FOR AN EGM TO REMOVE EACH OF THE FOLLOWING FROM THE OFFICE OF DIRECTOR:

(1) KAMAL KUMAR KISHORCHANDRA KAMDAR (NRIC NO. 700510-71-6031)
(2) RAJESH KUMAR A/L GEJINDER NATH (NRIC NO. 680516-08-5845)
(3) LIANG AH WAH @ FRANK LIANG (NRIC NO. 461221-01-5073)
(the "Specified Directors")

AND TO APPOINT EACH OF THE FOLLOWING TO BE DIRECTOR OF KAMDAR:
(1) JUGAL KISHOR SHIVLAL (NRIC NO. 590526-71-5047)
(2) MEGAT ABDUL MUNIR BIN MEGAT ABDULLAH RAFAIE (NRIC NO. 700104-08-6791)
(the "Proposed New Directors")

AND TO REMOVE ANY OTHER PERSON WHO MAY BE APPOINTED AS A DIRECTOR OF KAMDAR AT ANY TIME FROM 15 MARCH 2013 UP TO AND INCLUDING THE CONCLUSION OF THIS EGM (INCLUDING ANY ADJOURNMENT THEREOF)


For me, business itself is already difficult enough, let alone with the founding family fighting among themselves.

3 comments:

  1. I think they are the only company in Bursa which proposed a dividend(a very handsome 4 sen compared to their share price then of 40 sen in 2008) but was subsequently cancelled.Irony is,Bursa did not even raise an eyebrow,let alone question them..

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the information, will look into it. Normal dividends (year end) are proposed and can be voted against.

    By the way, Bursa is doing enforcement, but often it can take a long while before one hears the results, it can easily take 3 or more years. So theoretically it might be that they are still looking into this.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm sorry for saying that Bursa did nothing.Upon checking,I found out that Bursa actually reprimanded the company for withdrawing the 5% first and final dividend.Fact of the matter is,we minorities are of no privy to such shocks.Many of us bought on the assumption that the approval of the said dividend is only a formality.The subsequent withdrawal caused the share price to spiral down the very next day the announcement was made.What good is a public reprimand to minorities like us?

    ReplyDelete