Stratech: Delays in securing fresh funds resulted in missing AGM deadline

THE Stratech Group Ltd's annual general meeting (AGM) is overdue because of "inadvertent delays" in securing fresh funds, the company said late on Sunday night, in response to queries from the Singapore Exchange.

Stratech had applied unsuccessfully to extend the meeting deadline to the end of September 2017, amid a delay in the audit of its financial statements for the year to March 31, 2017.

The audit has not yet been completed - and the meeting not yet held - because the auditors will now require a review of financial statements up to the current accounting period, the surveillance technology provider said.

It has been suspended by the bourse operator since August 2017, over unresolved repayment of loan, payroll and Central Provident Fund issues.

These issues have not yet been resolved "fully", the company disclosed.

Stratech added that it could not hold its AGM as scheduled because it had been waiting for the injection of about S$9 million of fresh funds from founders and controlling shareholders David Chew and Leong Sook Ching, as well as the conversion of S$2 million to S$3 million of existing loans to the company.

Dr Chew is the company's executive chairman and his wife, Madam Leong, oversees its operations, finance, and corporate and legal affairs.

The additional investments from the duo - who together have a stake of about 34 per cent - would have come from a renounceable non-underwritten rights issue, in which they committed to provide irrevocable undertakings to the company to subscribe for their respective rights entitlement.

According to its unaudited financial statement for the full year to March 31, 2017, the company chalked up a net loss of S$11.8 million for that period, widening from S$9.6 million the previous year.

Stratech told the bourse operator that, given its negative results, it "was of the view that the statutory auditors might not be able to opine on the appropriateness of the company's preparation of its financial results on the assumption as a going concern until injection of the full amount of the indicated fresh funds".

"However, due to unforeseen circumstances, there had been inadvertent delays in securing the funding as anticipated," Stratech said, without elaborating on the circumstances.

It added that Dr Chew and Madam Leong have nonetheless "been making the injections progressively as advances in anticipation of conversion to capital as planned".

About S$5.5 million has been ploughed in so far, and the couple "target to make further injections over the next few months", the company said.

Stratech also aims to hold its AGM by the end of February 2018.