TrickleStar director quits over ‘hostile board dynamics’
Mia Pei
BERNARD Emby resigned as non-executive, non-independent director from Catalist-listed TrickleStar on Thursday (Jan 18), citing “hostile board dynamics”.
He said the board’s vision and actions were “incompatible” with his principles, and did not serve the long-term interests of shareholders, in his opinion.
“Hostile board dynamics, combined with board policies and actions, impeded my ability to fulfil my responsibilities as a director,” he said. He was the company’s chief executive officer before resigning from the post in November 2022; he then resigned as the company’s executive chairman the following month.
The TrickleStar board said it was unaware of any hostility during meetings. It added that it “always encouraged open and frank discussions”, and had invited him to all board committee meetings.
“As far as the board is aware, Mr Emby has enjoyed equal access to information as any other director should have, to enable him to fulfil his director responsibilities.
“Since Mr Emby gave up his roles as chairman and CEO, his opinions were, on many occasions, contrary to the final board decisions, but he was always given the opportunity to speak and air his views, and those views were considered before any decision was made.”
The board added that before Emby’s resignation as CEO, he led the company on an “ambitious” programme of new product development, which went sour as a result of challenges, including the Covid-19 pandemic.
The board said it undertook a review of those developments in mid-2022 because they were straining the company’s resources; it then took “the very tough decision” to terminate the development of some of those products, while continuing to focus on its core ones.
It noted that board decisions, including those on the company’s vision, direction and strategy, were made after consideration of Emby’s objections, as well as the interests of the company and its shareholders.
TrickleStar was founded in 2018, and listed on the local bourse’s junior board the following year. It was marginally in the black, with net profits of US$0.2 million in FY2019 and US$0.7 million in FY2020. The group ran up a US$2.4 million loss in FY2021, but swung back into the black in FY2022 with US$0.2 million in net profit.
According to its latest financials as at end-June 2023, the energy-saving device maker’s first profit for the first half of FY2023 stood at US$47,176, significantly higher than US$4,333 in the year-ago period.
Shares of TrickleStar last traded at S$0.178 on Nov 6, 2023.
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