SingPost's corporate governance blunder a result of "carelessness", says special audit report

There was no intent to deliberately mislead the public.

Singapore Post’s lengthy corporate governance saga has come to a close with the release of a special audit report by Drew & Napier LLC and PriceWaterHouseCoopers LLP.

The special audit report showed that SingPost did not mean to deliberately deceive shareholders when it erroneously said that none of its directors have an interest in the so-called Famous acquisitions, which were completed from 2013 to 2015.

In 2013, SingPost purchased a 62.5% equity stake in Famous Holdings (FHPL). In July 2014, through FHPL, SingPost snapped up a 100% stake in F.S Mackenzie, followed by the acquisition of a 90% equity stake in Famous Pacific Shipping (New Zealand) in January 2015.

It soon became apparent that SingPost’s lead independent director Keith Tay was also a non-executive chairman of Stirling Coleman Capital Limited (SCCL), which acted as financial arranger and adviser of the Famous acquisitions.

“The error appears to have been on account of carelessness in its preparation and review by certain SingPost staff. There is no evidence that there was any intention to deliberately mislead the public as to Mr Tay’s interest in the FSM Acquisition,” said the report.

Keith Tay will step down from his position in SingaPost with immediate effect. He will also step down from the board of directors of FHPL, and from SingPost’s Audit Committee, Nominations Committee and Executive Committee.

“The investments into FHPL, FSM and FPSNZ are strategic to SingPost as they are part of our internationalisation strategy to build an industry leading end-to-end eCommerce logistics network, across geographies. They have proven to be sound decisions, grounded in competitive and value adding advantage to advance SingPost's goal to become world class," SingPost said in a statement.