Thai’s wife, Cheryl Tan Bee Geok, is said to have filed a winding-up petition against SHSB, in which she holds a 42.5% stake while Thai holds the remaining 57.5%. The company is their private vehicle and holds a 40.3% stake in Supermax.
Thai and his wife founded Supermax in 1987. Tan is said to have filed the petition to enable her to directly own the shares in the glove maker instead of indirectly through SHSB.
Thai said SHSB was set up to establish a family trust for their three children and their future generations, and hence would “resist any application to wind up SHSB”, according to The Edge Malaysia in its latest issue.
“SHSB was to be jointly managed by both Thai and Tan. But since the breakdown in the relationship, the existence of SHSB is no longer practical,” the business weekly quoted sources as saying.
So far, the group has not issued a bourse filing on the petition to wind up SHSB. The holding company was set up at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in December 2020 with the couple transferring all their shares in Supermax into SHSB.
Thai said that given they were both in their 60s, it made perfect sense to have a family trust. “When we both die, neither one of us will bring (along) this wealth or any tangible assets,” Thai said.
Based on Supermax’s closing price of 80 sen, the couple’s joint 40.3% stake amounts to RM878.5 million.
Family spat
This is not the first time that family members had aired their laundry in public. In April last year, their daughter, Cecile Jaclyn Thai, resigned as non-executive director after a series of disagreements with the board.
In her bombshell resignation letter, Cecile, 36, said she resigned over the Supermax board’s alleged failure to uphold corporate governance practices and their fiduciary responsibilities.
She also claimed there had been concerted attempts by the board to “act against corporate governance practices, punish dissent and silence transparency”.
In her letter, she claimed she experienced “bullying and silencing” from other board members, including her father, while trying to uphold her fiduciary duties.
Cecile said the disagreements started in November 2021 when her father stated his intention to remove her from the board following her opposition to his proposed purchase of a new aircraft for US$47.4 million (RM226.4 million).
Previously in February 2022, she said the conferment of sole authority on Thai as the single authorised person for the company’s bank accounts was against financial accountability and corporate governance practices.
Cecile had joined the board in 2018, some years after Thai and Tan were charged with insider trading in 2014. Thai was found guilty in 2017 and given a five-year jail sentence and a fine of RM5 million. However, this was overturned in September 2020 on appeal.
Tan was barred from holding any board position for five years, with the ban ending next year.
Supermax posted a net loss of RM44.36 million for the second quarter ended Dec 31, 2023 (Q2 FY2024) from a net loss RM108.07 million a year earlier. This was the glove maker’s fifth consecutive quarter of losses.
It attributed the loss to weak demand after the Covid-19 pandemic, and low selling prices due to stiff competition, particularly from Chinese manufacturers.