Shareholders & Unethical Journalists

I have always understood the power that the press and journalist have on society on the whole and that Singapore has one of the most reliable and ethical journalists. I still hold that opinion, although I have to admit that even the most ethical can have its selfish side of the coin in order to stir reader volume.

For a gd few weeks, I kept my lips sealed about the situation surrounding the Isetan Saga that has seen the company make headlines in the news. I sincerely thank all those who have called and msged me to ask me abt the situation of the company and I hope that you would understand my position and reasons as to why I couldn’t disclose more than what the newspaper had to offer.

In compliance the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) Act and SGX guidelines, any share price sensitive information were not to be disclosed by employees of the company and their family members (which includes me) unless the information were made public. Now that the Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) has ended, I can finally speak. Phew. I would not be surprised if my trading account were being double checked by Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) for any possible trading of Isetan shares under my name.

For my frens who did not know abt the incident, I’ll briefly summarize it. Basically, tax laws are set to change by end of 2007 which meant that shareholders will no longer be able to claim rebates on the dividends they were being taxed on (as that same dollar was taxed thru company tax already). As a result of this, the shareholders made a big whoo-ha and demanded the company to pay additional dividends this year in order for the shareholders to claim the tax credits. In my opinion, this is no more than an effort to ransom the company into distributing all available cash (estimated at S$60 Mil). The ones that actively led the protest were none other than the ones who never fail to make issues out of nothing at every AGM. If you analyze the financial statements of Isetan, you would realize that the demands have only got benefits for the shareholders and detrimental effects for the company.