Not Your President

"Tan Cheng Bock explained yesterday in his rally how his years as a non-executive chairman at investment company Chuan Hup Holdings and as an independent director for ING Bank have well equipped him for the role."

Tan Cheng Bock is making a fool of himself. His definition of "independent director" is wrong. And he wrongly quotes MAS, for which I think he owes them due apology. His utterance shows that he lacks the fundamental knowledge of corporate finance and its regulations. People in the corporate industry here must be laughing at him for not understanding what an "independent director" is. The term is taken to describe a director is not aligned to the controlling shareholder group (whether as a group of individuals, or as a corporate body or bodies). His shallow knowledge of fundamentals show that he is indeed not competent to look after the finance of the nation.

As chairman of the Chuan Hup Marine Group (CHMG), he is only a nominal head of the board. He has no direct share in the group (albeit a small indirect interest of 0.02 % of the capital of the group through a third party company). I heard over the radio that TCB claimed that he led CHMG through 2 cycles of economic downturns. Wow. What audacity of him to claim credit for something which he had no direct hand in doing. CHMG belongs to the Peh family, having been founded by Peh Kwee Chim in the 70's. It is he who built up the group, and it is he who steered the group over the last 2 economic recessions. TCB, as non-executive chairman of the board, only serve as a nominal figurehead. The chairman's main duties are to regulate the flow of discussions on the agenda at each board meeting. He has no executive functions or authority and does not run the business of the group. It is much like Speaker of Parliament (he regulates parliamentary debates but he is not the leader of the government).

TCB should stick to medical jargon and perhaps talk about health care for which he has better grounding, and his utterances will be more appreciated.
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