Raffles Infrastructure finds it hard to shake off S-chip stigma
SINGAPORE (July 19): Despite its best efforts, Raffles Infrastructure Holding, the company formerly known as China Fibretech, has found it hard to shake off its stigma of being an S-chip once plagued by corporate governance issues.
This was despite Raffles Infrastructure getting itself a new controlling shareholder in the form of Chinese state-owned enterprise, China Capital Investment Group (CCIG), which in turn is a subsidiary of the Beijing state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.
During its restructuring, a new board and management team was also appointed and its previous fabric dye core business replaced with a new one based on infrastructure projects based in China.
Singapore Exchange was also said to have sent representatives to Beijing to meet CCIG when conducting its due diligence, something which was unheard of.
Nevertheless, the emergence of CCIG, among other factors, has enabled the trading in the company’s shares to resume on Sept 28, after being suspended since late 2015 after its former CEO was discovered to have made unauthorised payments to three major customers who demanded compensation for products they claimed did not meet their standards.
This story first appeared in The Edge Singapore (Issue 891, week of July 22) which is on sale now. Subscribe here
