MMM and 4 directors reprimanded, fined 494K

Bursa Malaysia has taken action against MMM (Malaysian Merchant Marine Bhd) and 4 of its directors: Dato’ Ramesh Rajaratnam, Kamil bin Abdul Rahman, Datuk K. Anthony @ Merlyn Kasimir and Dato’ Khairil Anuar bin Aziz.

"Bursa Malaysia Securities Berhad (Bursa Malaysia Securities) has publicly reprimanded Malaysian Merchant Marine Berhad (MMM) and its four directors for various breaches of the Listing Requirements of Bursa Malaysia Securities (LR) / Bursa Malaysia Securities Main Market Listing Requirements (Main LR). The four directors were also fined a total of RM493,750.

MMM was publicly reprimanded for committing various disclosure breaches arising from its failure to disclose/make accurate disclosures in respect of the termination/non-completion of certain vessel acquisitions and financial reporting breaches as follows:-"

And then a long list of incidents, for example:

"The QR Disclosures were not factual, unclear, ambiguous, inaccurate, not succinct, not balance, not fair, did not contain sufficient information to enable investors to make informed investment decisions and particularly misleading as to the funding and continuance of the Bow Santos Acquisition. There was also blatant omission of the termination / non-completion of the Bow Santos Acquisition and forfeiture of the deposit in MMM’s 1st QR 2010, 2nd QR 2010 and 3rd QR 2010. In respect of the statement on funding, there was no evidence of any confirmation from lenders to grant MMM credit facilities for the Bow Santos Acquisition before MMM executed the MOA and paid the deposit."

Etc, etc, etc.

Kudos to Bursa for taking action and giving a detailed description of the facts.

Still, questions remain, most incidents happened in 2009 and 2010, could Bursa not take action more early? The company was officially delisted on March 17, 2011, its shares were suspended since August 2010. The punishment seems rather late to offer any solace to its long suffering minority shareholders. Also, are fines really a sufficient deterrent?

MMM has been a controversial company for a long time, something Bursa was well aware off: since its listing in 1999 MMM had to reply a whopping 36 times to queries from Bursa.

Other events have well been documented by Where is Ze Moola.

MMM was linked to M3nergy, a company that was delisted in October 2010, and which was also reprimanded and its directors fined on August 17, 2010.