Amara disagrees with ex-ID over what he calls unresolved issues

PROPERTY developer and hotelier Amara Holdings responded to former independent director and chairman of the remuneration committee (RC) Tan Tiong Cheng, noting that it does not consider its outstanding material issues before the RC as an “unresolved matter”.

Following the company's annual general meeting on Apr 26, a bourse notification of Tan’s cessation as a director indicated that there were "unresolved differences" in opinion on material matters between him and the board.

Tan noted that “there are outstanding material issues before the remuneration committee which are being investigated to be resolved”. 

Amara responded that the outstanding issue involves the implementation of a compensation benchmarking report by a consulting firm engaged to review the compensation of senior management personnel.

It said: "Tan has viewed the matter as unresolved. The board wishes to clarify that it is still under discussion and no RC or board decisions have been made and needs to be followed up. Other than the aforesaid, there is no other outstanding issue before the RC."

The Singapore Exchange Securities Trading (SGX-ST) also asked about the company's plans to equip its RC after Tan was not re-elected at the Apr 26 meeting, as well as the company's plans to investigate the difference in opinion.

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Amara said that it is in the process of appointing new independent directors, after which it will reconstitute its RC.

It added that there is no investigation being carried out on the issue, reiterating that it is "still under discussion".

With regard to the remuneration of immediate family members, Amara referred to a LinkedIn post questioning the company’s decision not to disclose names and their exact remuneration. It said: “By disclosing the top 5 key management personnel individually in bands of S$250,000, the Company is susceptible to poaching of its key management personnel.”

Amara further stated that there are 3 immediate family members who are not directors but whose remuneration individually exceeded S$100,000 - the brother, sister and daughter of director and CEO Albert Teo Hock Chuan. Two of the members fall under the S$200,001 to S$300,000 band, while the other comes under the S$100,001 to S$200,000 band, it said.