Share buying costs director $3.9m in fines

Insider dealing has cost a director and financial controller of plastic-goods maker Ngai Hing Hong nearly $4 million.

Taylor Ho Tai-loi has been ordered to pay $3.98 million to an insider-dealing tribunal after he admitted using inside information to buy company shares prior to announcing record profits.

He is also banned from being a director of a listed company for a year.

Mr Ho earned $1.94 million through buying the shares on July 21, 1995, after learning Ngai Hing Hong would announce profits in September that year of $60.92 million.

This marked an increase in profit of 73 per cent over the previous year.

On July 21, Ngai Hing Hong's shares had stood at $1.50 and rose sharply soon after the profit announcement, to reach $2.88 per share.