Six Capital's ex-boss Patrick Teng sets up virtual currency firm

Singapore

HIS self-described fintech company is being liquidated, but Six Capital Investments boss Patrick Teng Chee Wai has already moved on and now fronts a new company called Clover Gold, which sells virtual currency online.

Last year, he had filed for Six Cap to be wound up in the British Virgin Islands after investors made police reports against the firm and called for an investigation into its transactions.

Mr Teng had promised around 1,000 investors and employees that Six Cap would deliver returns as high as 18 per cent a year, but stopped making payouts around June 2017.

Investors were told in March last year that Six Cap would be unable to make good on its debts of about US$143 million. By then, Mr Teng was uncontactable to most.

According to his profile in LinkedIn, the professional networking platform, he founded Clover Gold last September.

He is stated as having been the chief of Clover Treasury since 2012, but it is unclear if this is a reference to an actual entity.

Mr Teng did not immediately respond to a request from this reporter to connect on LinkedIn. His page there makes no reference to Six Capital, which he set up in 2009.

He was last reported seen in Mumbai in India on April 25, when he visited the ITM Business School to speak about disruptions in financial services.

He was then accompanied by Rohit Naruka, a school alumnus who is also Clover Gold's senior manager of business development and head of forex trading in India, the school said in a Facebook post.

Clover Gold has an office in London, its website said.

The website also carries a disclaimer: "On this journey, there will be a culture of constant changes and there will be risks... We do not accept any liability for any loss or damage whatsoever caused in reliance upon such information or services. Only invest a very small amount of money which you are willing to lose for educational purposes."

The website makes no reference to Six Cap.

One of Six Cap's products was a "fintech game" called Tagg. To promote its launch in the Indonesian market, Six Cap had its livery painted on an AirAsia jet.

Mr Teng has never disclosed how Tagg actually made money. What it does is proprietary, he said. When this reporter spoke to him in 2017, he described the business in "theoretical terms" only.

His son Paul was Six Cap's chief innovation officer and Tagg's "gamemaster" until he resigned in November 2017.

Patrick Teng was also behind Indigoz Exchange, which was fined S$10,000 by the Monetary Authority of Singapore in 2005 for selling stored-value cards which it called "i-chqs" without approval.