MC Payment in the red after one-off expenses relating to reverse takeover, board tussle

THE costs incurred by the Catalist-listed digital payment services player MC Payment TVV : TVV 0% in its reverse takeover as well as the legal fee relating to the extraordinary general meeting arising from a board tussle tipped it into the red.

The company noted in its statement filed to the Singapore Exchange (SGX) on Aug 14 that without the S$30 million takeover expenses and the S$160,000 legal fee, it would have reported S$660,000 in net profit and not a S$29.5 million loss for the first half of FY 2021 to June.

Major shareholder Ching Chiat Kwong had requisitioned the extraordinary general meeting for the appointment of five new directors to the company's board, and the resolutions for their appointments were all approved on June 30.

Mr Ching, also the CEO of the mainboard-listed property developer Oxley Holdings, made the requisition after two previous directors of MC Payment were not re-elected at the annual general meeting in April. He later crossed swords with MC Payment's then-board over the ousting of the two directors and other matters.

The company was listed on SGX through a reverse takeover of Artivision Technologies earlier this year. While it incurred S$3.6 million in cost for the corporate action, there was also a non-cash expense of S$26.4 million relating to the write-off of goodwill following the reverse takeover.

Its revenue declined by about 2 per cent to S$5.86 million as there was a lower contribution from the merchant payment services segment.

GET BT IN YOUR INBOX DAILY

Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.

Sign UpVIEW ALL

The counter rose 1.19 per cent to S$0.425 on Friday, before the financial results were released.