HK Standard losses exceed $11.7m

Sing Tao Holdings last night revealed that operating losses at its English-language daily, the Hong Kong Standard, for the year to March 1996 exceeded the $11.7 million in losses incurred by the group's entire newspaper business in the same year.

The admission by the publishing group controlled by Sally Aw Sian - the first time it has talked publicly about the newspaper's performance - followed a dramatic day in which six Standard officials were arrested by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).

Shares in Sing Tao and its 43 per cent owned associate Culturecom Holdings, publisher of Chinese language daily Tin Tin Daily News and a string of comics, were suspended from trading yesterday morning ahead of the arrests.

Those arrested included three serving and one former senior official and one former and one serving circulation supervisor at the newspaper.

The commission said inquiries disclosed that since early 1994, the circulation figures of the Hong Kong Standard and Sunday Standard had been 'fraudulently and systematically' inflated to deceive a British-based audit company and the company's advertising agents.

The Hong Kong Standard and Sunday Standard compete with the territory's other English-language newspapers, South China Morning Post and Sunday Morning Post.