Gan Siew Liat, Executive Director of KNM and wife of former CEO Lee Swee Eng, has been caught scamming the company’s employees by diverting millions either directly or indirectly into her wealth.
Several documents, when cross-checked, show that for the past two years, she has been diverting and issuing a significant amount of KNM shares to her family members (illegally) and relatives. According to the data, almost 155 million out of nearly 185 million units (84%) of KNM’s shares have been issued to her family members, including herself and her husband. The beneficiaries include two of her cousins and one non-employee director, Mohd Rizal Bahari Bin Md Noor. These shares were meant for the employees of the company under the Employee Stock Options Scheme (ESOS).
By granting these shares to her family members instead of employees, they violated clause 4 of KNM ESOS guidelines, which states that these shares have a vesting period of three years. Questions were raised with Bursa Malaysia as there were no appropriate announcements and sometimes delays on Bursa Malaysia’s official website regarding the issuance of these shares. This is in accordance with clause 10.08 of Bursa Malaysia’s listing requirements regarding entitlement to the substantial shareholder and the person connected to her.
Not only did she divert the shares, but she also issued the Independent Directors’ shares during this period along with the ESOS scam. These shares were issued to non-employees and, surprisingly, with little or no vesting period.
After being caught with sufficient evidence in these scams, she and her accomplices were dismissed by the KNM board of directors.
Reports suggest that at the time of this writing, Lee Swee Eng and his associates control no more than 15% of outstanding shares of the KNM group. However, it is well known that Lee Swee Eng and his group have a strong influence over the majority of votes on the board of directors, which could help his wife and others involved in the ESOS employee scam to escape with little or no charges.
