SINGAPORE: A day after Mr Sherman Kwek named his father’s associate as the source of a dispute within their company City Developments Limited (CDL), board member Philip Yeo emerged to criticise Mr Kwek’s statement as “an attempt to distract everyone from the matter at hand”.
Mr Yeo is among the minority directors led by Mr Kwek’s father and executive chairman Kwek Leng Beng.
In a statement late on Friday (Feb 28), Mr Yeo said Mr Sherman Kwek – CDL’s group CEO – and the directors acting with him intentionally circumvented the company’s nomination committee and pushed through the appointment of two additional independent directors against legal advice.
“They quickly reconstituted the nomination committee and the remuneration committee as the nomination & remuneration committee to effectively immobilise the executive chairman,” Mr Yeo said.
He added that Mr Sherman Kwek should focus on making back S$1.9 billion in shareholder losses from a deal involving Sincere Properties as well as the other losses from the UK property investments.
“Instead, he seems more concerned about grievances, mobilising a group of independent directors to remove an advisor to the CDL hospitality business, which has actually seen profit improvements for the past few years since COVID,” Mr Yeo said.
“CDL was acquired by Mr Kwek Hong Png, Mr Kwek Leng Joo and Mr Kwek Leng Beng,” he added, referring to Mr Kwek Leng Beng’s late father and brother.
“I know all three of them well. The men of our era all dared to dream. That is how the three of them executed so well to build a multi-billion-dollar Singaporean company that competes on a global scale. The CDL CEO must learn from them. Just pure hard work to serve all shareholders!”
The family feud and power struggle spilled into the public domain on Wednesday when the elder Kwek said his son was attempting a boardroom “coup”.
Both men have since made several public statements, each laying out their account of the events that led to the fallout.
The younger Kwek on Thursday singled out his father’s associate as the source of a dispute within CDL. Dr Catherine Wu, 65, is an adviser to the board of Millennium & Copthorne Hotels (M&C), a subsidiary of CDL.
Mr Sherman Kwek also said that there was no attempt to oust the chairman.