Reference no: EM132741274
Question - The Company was incorporated in Singapore as a holding company, Epure international Ltd., with its main business operations in the PRC. It listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX) in October 2006 under the ticker E6E. It raised SG$65M in its IPO. An additional share offering in July 2007 raised another SG$112.05M.
March 2010 The Company changed it names from Epure international Ltd to Sound Global Ltd.
September 30, 2010 The Company started trading on the Hong Kong Exchange (HKEx).
January 10, 2014, Shares stopped trading on the SGX and were delisted on the 27 January 2014.
February 4, 2015 Emerson Research issued a report; "Sound Global - a Water Specialist in Deep Water". It believed Sound Global had been overstating its sales. The research it had done on the company raised a number of issues including:
Bogus revenue: unknown company does RMB1B of undisclosed technology business a year. 40% of the company's revenue during 2011-13 was accounted for by a segment of engineering technology service. Emerson could find no trace of this service.
All evidence suggested Sound Global completed the Anshan plants in 2012 but the company said Anshan was its biggest revenue source in 2013. If it had accounted for Anshan in 2012 as a BOT project on percentage completion basis, then it left a hole in the 2013 revenue with no big projects to account for. But if the company had not accounted for Anshan in 2012, that raised the question of which projects contributed to the 2012 revenue.
Confusing accounting: reporting profit before building anything. In the 2010 Hong Kong listing document, it shows that 90% of revenue from two Jingzhou projects has been booked in 2008. However, the company did not sign the construction contract until early 2009.
Exceedingly low interest income suggested that the company's real cash/bank balances probably averaged merely one-third of the amounts disclosed. This was another strong indicator that the revenue and profit figures had been significantly inflated.
Concluding Emerson believed the stock was worth about HK$2.4 (on P/E) before accounting for any other irregularities. That was a downside of about 70%.
February 13, 2015 Sound Global issued a Clarification Announcement refuting the allegations and addressing them.
Which ethical theory has been used to assess the case involved?
How ethics have been violated?