Allied Tech appoints PwC as special auditor

PRECISION engineering company Allied Tech on Friday said it has appointed PwC as its special auditor to investigate the circumstances surrounding certain transactions, including the placing of some S$33 million of funds with law firm JLC Advisors under escrow that reportedly went missing.

PwC will also look into whether there was any potential breach of the Companies Act, Catalist rules, Securities and Futures Act and other laws and regulations, and review Allied Tech's corporate governance and internal controls and propose remediation actions and areas of improvement.

In a bourse filing late on Friday night, Allied Tech said PwC will investigate the following matters:

1. Asia Box Office (ABO) and the events it hosted as highlighted by Allied Tech's auditor previously

2. ABO's funds of S$1.09 million and the S$33.4 million that were or are held in trust or escrow by JLC, as well as the progress in procuring the Allied Tech funds 

3. The group's diversification into e-commerce

4. Acquisition of ABO and Activpass and their valuation and impairment assessments

5. Conditional investment and convertible loan agreement between Allied Tech and 8travelpay Intelligence & Technology (Shanghai) which was mutually terminated from May 15 this year onwards

6. Use of funds raised by two share placements by the company - which were completed in October 2017 and July 2018 - of 675 million shares at five Singapore cents each and 420 million shares at six Singapore cents each, respectively

7. Advances and repayments and any inflow and outflow of funds between ABO and Platform Capital Asia (Singapore)

This follows a notice of compliance by SGX RegCo to the company for it to appoint a special auditor to look into observations raised by the auditors, including the placement of Allied's funds with JLC Advisors, subsequent developments as well as the progress in procuring the deposit of those funds.

PwC will report solely to SGX RegCo on the scope and findings of the special audit.

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