Where's the follow-up to SGX queries on price swings?

THE sudden rise in the share price of healthy-lifestyle firm OSIM International in the days before it announced a privatisation offer illustrates one of the most troubling governance lapses in the local stock market - the potential leakage of material, price-sensitive information. This has been occurring with sufficient regularity to be of concern and is an issue on which regulators should focus their investigative energies.

Consider the case of OSIM. The company requested trading to be halted on March 2, the day after the stock hit S$1.225, up from S$0.99 on Feb 1. This was a rise of almost 24 per cent in a month, one that included a 10.3 per cent surge on March 1, the day before the halt. Over the same four weeks, the Straits Times Index recorded only a 3 per cent gain, so OSIM's performance was vastly superior.

The March 1 jump was sufficiently unusual to prompt a trading query from the Singapore Exchange (SGX); this was followed by Monday's news of a takeover-cum-privatisation offer at S$1.32 per share.