The boardroom-family saga at City Developments has seemingly come to an end, with executive chairman Kwek Leng Beng discontinuing legal actions launched against a faction of board directors led by his son, group CEO Sherman Kwek.
Besides Leng Beng and Sherman, two of the newly appointed independent directors, Jennifer Duong Young and Su Yen Wong, will remain on the board.
"All the Board members have agreed to put aside their differences for the greater good of CDL and its stakeholders.
"We will all continue to focus on strengthening CDL’s business, in accordance with good corporate governance, now and in the future, including completing the raft of landmark developments underway across Singapore and globally, furthering the expansion of various brands under Millennium & Copthorne, continuing our capital recycling initiative and above all, maximising shareholder value," reads the statement by Leng Beng on behalf of the board.
The Singapore business community woke up on Feb 26 to news that CDL, having announced lower FY2024 earnings as expected before the market opened, abruptly cancelled the results briefing that was to be held later in the morning.
A flurry of accusations and rebuttals followed, revealing a company's board that's split into two.
The then smaller faction led by Leng Beng accused Sherman and the other directors of an "attempted coup" by flouting procedures in a bid to consolidate control.
Specifically, two of the new IDs Young and Wong were nominated via a process that was deemed irregular.
In his subsequent responses, Sherman named one Dr Catherine Wu, whose official position is advisor to the board of M&C, as a key source of the dispute.
Both sides hired lawyers in preparation.
CDL shares closed at $4.94 on March 12, versus the Feb 25 close of $5.12, just before the dispute burst into the open.
