KUALA LUMPUR (June 8): Serba Dinamik Holdings Bhd continued its downtrend, falling to a new low this morning, over a week after audit issues were raised.
The counter slipped as much as 15.5 sen or 20.26% to an intraday low of 61 sen as selling pressure emerged.
At the time of writing, the counter had pared some losses at 62 sen, still down 14.5 sen or 18.95%.
Since the audit issue of the firm was made public at the end of May, the counter had lost about 61.49%, with some RM3.69 billion market capitalisation wiped off.
The counter was the most actively traded stock this morning, with 308.24 million shares traded.
Meanwhile, counters linked to Serba Dinamik group managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) Datuk Dr Mohd Abdul Karim Abdullah were feeling the heat as well.
Both KPower Bhd and Sarawak Consolidated Industries Bhd (SCIB) were also down this morning.
KPower slid 10 sen or 8.93% to an intraday low of RM1.02 before settling at RM1.03 at the time of writing. The stock had declined 39% since Serba Dinamik’s audit issues were made known.
SCIB also dwindled as much as eight sen or 8.6% to an intraday low of 85 sen. The counter had pared some losses to 85.5 sen at the time of writing, but was still down 7.5 sen or 8.06%.
SCIB’s stock had fallen 42.23% since Serba Dinamik’s audit issues emerged.
Mohd Abdul Karim, who is the largest shareholder of Serba Dinamik, is controlling a 27.07% stake in the oil and gas (O&G) firm. He also holds a 32.36% stake in KPower and 36.8% of SCIB.
The selldown of these stocks started when Serba Dinamik’s external auditor KPMG raised questions over the company’s past transactions of over RM3 billion.
Serba Dinamik Holdings Bhd “has done nothing wrong”, said Mohd Abdul Karim Abdullah on May 29 in clarifying the company's audit issues recently raised by KPMG.
The company described KPMG as acting in an “unfair” and “peculiar” manner for going straight to the company’s independent directors to address the audit issues — instead of briefing the management first.
While the company is currently in the midst of appointing an independent audit firm to assess the audit concerns raised by KPMG, one of its substantial shareholders, namely Kumpulan Wang Persaraan (Diperbadankan) (KWAP), has trimmed its shareholding in Serba Dinamik to 4.53% after selling 26.03 million shares or a 0.7% stake.
The institutional shareholders — the Employees Provident Fund and Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB) — which are holding a 10.18% stake and 6.15% respectively in Serba Dinamik, have also expressed concern over the audit issues.
Serba Dinamik’s second-largest shareholder, Datuk Abdul Kadier Sahib, who is holding 16.25% of the company, recently changed his mind and decided not to remove KPMG as the company’s external auditor.
He earlier called for an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) to vote for a resolution to remove KPMG, and to appoint BDO as the new external auditor. The move, however, came under fire from both the Minority Shareholders Watch Group (MSWG) and the Institutional Investors Council Malaysia.