Corporate digest

TTJ Holdings

STRUCTURAL steel fabricator TTJ Holdings said on Sunday that six foreign workers employed by its unit TTJ Design and Engineering have been identified as confirmed cases of the Covid-19 infection.

TTJ Design and Engineering, at 57 Pioneer Road, was named as a new infection cluster on Saturday. TTJ had closed all its workplace premises in Singapore from April 7 to May 4 as it does not provide essential services, but TTJ Design and Engineering continues to operate an on-site foreign workers dormitory at 57 Pioneer Road.

The group said: "On being notified of the links of the confirmed cases of the Covid-19 infection, the company had taken prompt action and isolated all employees who have had direct contact with the confirmed cases."

TTJ has been assisting the authorities with contact tracing, and is extending its full support to the infected employees and their families.

Since March 28, TTJ Design and Engineering had required those foreign workers staying at its on-site dormitory not to leave.

Since April 7, when Singapore began enforcing stricter safe distancing measures, catered food and laundry services had also been arranged for all foreign workers at the site, TTJ said.

TTJ added: "At this stage, the company is unable to quantify nor determine the true extent of the financial impact of the safe- distancing measures on the earnings per share and net asset value per share of the group for the financial year ending July 31, 2020."

Y Ventures

THE financial controller of Y Ventures, Goh Lay Lan, has resigned to pursue other career opportunities, but she will continue to assist in the ongoing independent review to assess lapses in the Catalist-listed e-commerce startup's internal controls.

In January last year, Y Ventures announced that it had mistakenly overstated its net profit by S$1.3 million in the first half of 2018, and was in fact loss-making.

Following queries from Singapore Exchange Regulation, Deloitte and Touche Enterprise Risk Services was hired to scrutinise the "adequacy and effectiveness" of Y Ventures' internal controls for the financial period of Jan 1, 2014 to Dec 31, 2018.

Y Ventures said in an exchange filing on Sunday: "Ms Goh has confirmed that she is not aware of any concerns with regards to the financial reporting of the company and the ongoing independent review that might have led to her resignation."

Ms Goh was appointed as financial controller in July last year, after Y Ventures' chief financial officer at the time resigned after holding the position for less than a year.

Prior to that, Ms Goh had been assisting Y Ventures in its financial and accounting matters as a consultant since April 2019.

Ms Goh will step down with effect from May 18. She will be replaced by Lam May Yih, who will assume the post of chief financial officer on May 9.

Memories Group

CATALIST-listed tourism player Memories Group has discovered a case of fraud at its wholly-owned Myanmar subsidiary, Asia Holidays Travels & Tours Company (AHTT), it said last Wednesday.

A sum of about US$500,000 was misappropriated from AHTT's accounts by three employees involved in its business, and investigations are ongoing, it said.

Memories Group said it came into knowledge of the fraud when the finance manager responsible for AHTT conducted checks in February 2020 as part of its existing internal control procedures.

The employees concerned were immediately dismissed. A police report has also been lodged and the case is under investigation by the police in Myanmar. The suspects are currently held in custody and likely to be charged in court.

The group also commissioned a forensic audit and deployed its risk management and internal audit team to carry out further investigations on AHTT's accounts during its peak operating periods of May 2019 and from September 2019 to January 2020.

The audit concluded that overall, internal control procedures were in place, but could be further strengthened.

"Measures are being taken to continuously strengthen these controls especially in the area of accounts payable," the group said.

The group is actively pursuing legal recourse to recover the misappropriated monies, which will entail having to file a civil lawsuit.

Shareholders will be updated on the total amount misappropriated once the investigations have concluded.

Any impact of this misappropriation will be reflected in the financial statements of the group for the period ending Sept 30, 2020.