Choong Kar Weng explained in court how the successful acquisition by CHC of Suntec Singapore set in motion the return of advanced rentals paid to Xtron.
CN PHOTO: Daniel Poh.
The afternoon session saw deputy public prosecutor Christopher Ong questioning witness Choong Kar Weng on the restructuring of Xtron bonds, the purchase of Firna bonds and personal guarantee by former Xtron director Wahju Hanafi to undertake expenses incurred by the Crossover Project.
DPP Ong questioned Choong on his confidence to repay the restructured bond with the additional amount of S$8 million on top of the initial S$13.5 million. Choong explained that he was not aware of the difficulties in redeeming the bond but he saw no issue in redeeming the restructured bond because of the amended terms. The restructured bond now had a redemption period of 10 years instead of the initial two years. He was also confident that in 10 years, proceeds from the sales of Sun Ho’s music album would have come in.
In an email from Serina Wee to Kong Hee and Choong, DPP Ong showed an attached document of a loan schedule table, which detailed repayment schedules to individual lenders, from whom Wahju Hanafi borrowed money to fulfill his personal guarantee of the Crossover Project.
The prosecution alleged that the individuals were repaid with AMAC’s returns from its investments. From the table, Ong suggested to the Court that funds obtained from CHC for investment purposes were used to repay the loans.
AMAC is CHC’s appointed investment company, which had the right to invest CHC’s funds as it saw fit.
Choong also explained to the Court that the need to terminate the Advanced Rental License Agreement between Xtron and CHC was due to CHC’s acquisition of Suntec Singapore shares, which negated the need for advanced rental.
This meant that Xtron had to repay S$40 million of advance rental owed to CHC within 60 days as required by the agreement. To do so, Xtron had to redeem the Firna bonds previously undertaken.
Firna is an Indonesian company owned by Wahju Hanafi. He is also the personal guarantor of the Crossover Project.
According to Choong, he and a few others were chipping in to help Hanafi because the acquisition of Suntec shares meant that he had to make good on his personal guarantee of the Crossover project within a short time frame.
In an email conversation between Kong Hee, Sun Ho and Choong, Kong expressed concern about whether the bond transactions were legally sound. Choong then suggested a special audit to check whether there were any outstanding debts to be repaid.
The defense team will cross-examine Choong tomorrow at 9:30 am.
中文报道 – 《思创》董事解释预付租金之偿还
