Saturday, October 2, 2010

Thought For The Weekend: Do S-Chips Have The Money In The Bank?

A confluence of un-related events have led to this post. I am preparing to go to the library to return books as well as head to the bank to do some manual transfers. This month will be a tough month for me as I have several commitments, namely a wedding dinner, a trip to nearby islands as well as an important birthday.

What prompted this post was that the Chinese show that my mother was watching, had a scene whereby the boss tried to get his employee to confess as to whether the latter embezzled money. It brought a smile to my face because shortly after the worst of the GFC, several Chinese companies listed here, reported accounting issues. It was definitely farcical when the Business Times carried pieces of how auditors were led on a wild goose chase, when they tried to verify money in the bank or had hired fake "bank employees".

Due to the strong stock market, a lot of S-Chips got lifted to very high levels. They since come down and look unlikely to recover. Some of them have since been suspended or de-listed, despite supposedly having high cash and equity levels. Now that the worst of the GFC is over, it will take some more time for such fraudulent companies to surface belly up. Which S-Chips do you think its piggy bank is empty?

No comments:

Post a Comment