Co-founder David Gan is suing 8 parties for breaching a shareholders’ agreement and trying to gain control of the firm.
SINGAPORE – The cost of developing the Tipsy Unicorn beach club in Sentosa had in 2023 overrun its budget, doubling from $3 million to $6 million, despite warnings from shareholders that the project was financially risky.
The defendants – including Indonesian investors Reino Ramaputra Barack and Santosa Kadiman, Singaporean Rudy Hartono Widjaja and four shareholders – recently filed court papers outlining their defence, which ST has obtained. In addition to the budget overruns, other examples of alleged mismanagement cited included non-disclosure of financial information, failing to conduct timely audits, and debts to suppliers, contractors and creditors amounting to some $5.2 million.
Some of these financial irregularities were uncovered after Mr Alex Phua, Tipsy Collective’s former chief executive and group chief financial officer, joined the company in June 2023. In his defence, Mr Kadiman, who is represented by lawyers from WongPartnership, said he and the majority shareholders were concerned over Mr Gan and Mr Ong’s management of the company and the decisions taken by them, particularly over the debts and liabilities taken by the company and its subsidiaries.
After Mr Ong’s death, his widow sold his shares to Steady Property, Novus and White Rock in March. This eventually resulted in the four shareholders increasing their collective stake in the company from 31.74 per cent to 59.39 per cent. Mr Gan, 32, owns a stake of 25.06 per cent in the company, with the remaining 15.55 per cent owned by Mr Reuben Low Kok Cherng, a director of the firm and its former chief operating officer.
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