Chemical Industries refutes allegations of providing ‘post-retirement perks’ to co-founder

CHEMICAL Industries : C05 0%’ co-founder Lim Soo Peng has a dedicated office and is driven by a company employee in his personal car, but the group maintains that such perceived “perks” were for performing his duties as emeritus chairman and non-executive director.

On Sunday (Feb 18), the mainboard-listed company added that it does not pay for medical or other personal expenses incurred by Lim in his personal capacity.

This is contrary to what minority shareholders alleged through their letter to Chemical Industries’ board of directors in January 2024. The letter was also sent to the Securities Investors Association (Singapore), or Sias, and has been seen by The Business Times.

Concerns over what the shareholders deemed “post-retirement perks” for Lim included commercially viable space as his personal office, salaries of his personal support staff, and personal medical expenses incurred by the company.

Chemical Industries said while its administrative office at Upper Circular Road included an office room for Lim, he utilises the room “solely for official company matters and does not use the premises as his personal office”.

It also stated that Lim “does not have any dedicated personal administrative staff” – though he is assisted by an office manager on an ad-hoc basis “as and when required”.

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The chauffeur, who is an employee of a subsidiary of the company, supports Lim “in the discharge of his duties as emeritus chairman, such as attending official company functions, business meetings and going to and fro from the premises”.

Chemical Industries was responding to queries by the Sias and the SGX Exchange Regulation (SGX RegCo). 

The company clarified that S$75,000 of the S$150,000 directors fee paid to Lim for FY2023 was a basic fee paid to all non-executive directors in the fiscal year.

An additional fee of S$75,000 was for Lim’s “role and contributions as emeritus chairman by way of his mentorship and guidance to the board”.

Addressing queries on whether it was carrying out a search to fill its C-suite vacancies, Chemical Industries said it had hired an “international professional executive search firm” shortly after its last chief executive, Yeo Sze Chiat, resigned.

The “top priority” of its nominating committee (NC) is to engage a new chief executive officer, said the group, and the committee’s chairman has interviewed candidates proposed by the executive search firm since the start of 2024.

These shortlisted candidates were interviewed by the full NC as at Feb 7, 2024.

Chemical Industries however does not intend to appoint a new chief operating officer (COO) to replace Loi Kheng Seong, who resigned from the role in October last year around the same time as the group’s former chief executive, Yeo.

The company expects the incoming CEO to “assess the functions of the COO and integrate them with other functions within the group for efficiency in operations and optimisation of manpower resources”.

The group said it will appoint a senior manager from its existing sales team to fill in for its sales and marketing director Yap Yoke Woo, who leaves his position this month.

This appointment will be made before Yap’s departure, and the choice of whether to hire a new candidate for the role will be left to the new CEO. 

“Despite the recent changes in the management team, the company affirms that it continues to have the requisite minimum standards of quality, operations, management experience and expertise,” said Chemical Industries.

The counter was trading flat at S$0.59 as at 10.21am on Monday.