Investors on Trek 2000 Odyssey get rude awakening

IT was a promising company, and a poster boy for Singapore companies venturing overseas.

Nearly two decades ago, Trek 2000, founded by inventor Henn Tan, unveiled the revolutionary ThumbDrive® USB flash drive, an invention that condemned the ubiquitous floppy disk to technological wastebin.

Led by Tan, who is also Trek's chairman and chief executive officer, the Singapore mainboard-listed company was named by Forbes Global as one of the Best Small Companies in the World in 2000 and 2002. More recently, it was conferred the One Asia - Avant-Garde Award and International Management Action Award in 2015.