USP says Indonesia unit's employee misappropriated up to S$20,000

THE employment of an errant staff at USP Group's Indonesian subsidiary has been terminated, after the individual was found to have misappropriated a sum not exceeding S$20,000 as at Monday.

Watch-listed USP - which is separately facing a winding-up application - said in a bourse filing late Monday night that it was informed on or about Sept 25 that the subsidiary's management had investigated the employee.

The staff member admitted to having misappropriated monies belonging to the Indonesian company since January 2020.

The subsidiary's management is taking legal action, including lodging a police report against the errant employee, USP said.

It added that the misappropriation was detected through a whistleblowing process, which the group's management had strongly advocated for in a meeting with subsidiaries on or about March 2020.

USP said the amount misappropriated has no material financial impact to the group. The group is also reviewing the measures in place to prevent and/or mitigate the occurrence of such incidents.

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Separately, an open court hearing for an application to wind up USP will take place on Oct 9, the company announced earlier this month.

This came after the court had dismissed USP's application to set aside a statutory demand from substantial shareholder Oon Koon Cheng and for an injunction to restrain Mr Oon from commencing and/or continuing winding-up proceedings against the company.

Mr Oon served the company a statutory demand on Feb 25 for repayment of S$1.5 million he loaned to USP on Dec 7, 2019.

USP shares last traded at 7.1 Singapore cents on Sept 16. The company advised shareholders and potential investors to exercise caution in trading their shares.