Convoy sues ex-directors for stealing from financial adviser’s US$520m stock placement
A court filing says Doctor Cho was the mastermind behind a number of share placements and circular financing deals to defraud Convoy of its assets
Troubled financial firm Convoy Global Holdings is suing its former chairman and related parties involved in a complex network of companies for stealing some assets from the company’s HK$4.043 billion (US$520 million) private placement in 2015, according to a writ obtained by the South China Morning Post on Tuesday morning.
The writ was filed by Convoy Global Holdings and its units Convoy Collateral and CSL Securities, under new management led by interim chairman Johnny Chen Chi-wang.
Hong Kong’s largest financial adviser with about 100,000 clients, which includes the city’s Mandatory Provident Fund, is seeking unspecific damages from 28 defendants. These include former chairman Quincy Wong Lee-man, former vice-chairman Rosetta Fong Sut-sum, former director Christie Chan Lai-yee and Lerado Financial Group chairman Mark Mak Kwong-yiu, a former chief executive of Convoy – all of whom have been arrested by the Securities and Futures Commission and Independent Commission Against Corruption earlier this month.
The court case is the latest twist in the boardroom battle as it was filed about 10 days before its largest shareholder, Kwok Hiu-kwan, who owns 29.91 per cent of the company, has called for a shareholders meeting on December 29 to expel eight directors, including its president and executive director Ng Wing Fai.
A key person named in the writ is former Convoy director Roy Cho Kwai-chee, known to local stockbrokers as Doctor Cho, because of his medical profession. He has been suspended from the company as Convoy could not contact him.