THREATS AND DEMANDS According to the older man, from 2016, his son made a series of threats and demands against him for his money and assets. The relationship deteriorated significantly by March 2018, when the father was in the midst of closing the company’s supermarket operations. He offered his son S$3 million to buy out his 8 per cent of shares and hoped his son would obtain the necessary documents for the closure. But his son asked for S$15 million instead to exit the company. This was rejected by his father.

One such discussion was on Dec 21, 2015, which was captured on video. The son used it to substantiate his case. By 2017, the supermarket business ceased to be viable, and on May 25, 2018, the father and other shareholders of the company unanimously resolved to end the supermarket operations.

He said he intended to distribute his assets to his children, including his son, in the future. The court heard that the son had asked his father to put matters into writing, but the older man said he thought it was unnecessary and that he was simply expressing his plans for the future and did not intend to create any legally binding agreement.

“The defendant says he did not receive any resignation letter from the plaintiff and did not receive any indication that the plaintiff wished to resign.” According to the father, he decided in 2012 that his children should play a larger role in the company, and appointed his daughter and his son as directors of the company at the same time.

But he claimed he turned it down when the father verbally offered him another 60 per cent shares in the company and 60 per cent of the properties – something the older man disputes. “On the other hand, the defendant (father) denies having ever made such an offer to the plaintiff or having entered into the alleged oral agreement with the plaintiff,” Justice Hoo said in her judgment.

According to the son, he was headhunted by a Malaysian company for the position of CEO, and was offered an annual remuneration of between RM900,000 (S$272,000) and RM1.2 million.

In 2003, the property in Tampines was bought by one of the father’s companies. The son told the court he was appointed CEO in 2004, and he claimed that the business boomed under him. The defendant, however, said his son was “not substantively involved” in setting up the company, and that he saw it as a family business and wanted his five children to be involved in it. His son only started working in the company in 2003 after getting his master’s degree. In 2004, the father agreed to make his son CEO as he “wanted to groom” his son to take over.

In 2003, the property in Tampines was bought by one of the father’s companies. The son told the court he was appointed CEO in 2004, and he claimed that the business boomed under him. The defendant, however, said his son was “not substantively involved” in setting up the company, and that he saw it as a family business and wanted his five children to be involved in it. His son only started working in the company in 2003 after getting his master’s degree. In 2004, the father agreed to make his son CEO as he “wanted to groom” his son to take over.

The company was set up in 1999 by the father, who owns 85 per cent of the supermarket business. His son, Mr Kwek Hong Lim, owned 8 per cent. The remaining 7 per cent was split between the defendant’s wife (5 per cent) and his daughter (2 per cent).

She added that the younger man, who has a master’s degree and was an experienced businessman, never put the agreement into writing. “Although he says he asked the defendant many times to put the agreement into writing, those were all verbal requests,” said the judge. “Even if the defendant had refused to do so, the plaintiff could have followed up with a written request. There was none.”

SINGAPORE: A man who sued his father over a failed supermarket business, claiming he was verbally promised a larger share of the company and property, has had his case dismissed by the High Court. Mr Kwek Hong Lim had demanded S$15 million (US$11.3 million) for his "amicable exit" from the company that ran YES Supermarket in Tampines and later threatened to publicise the family dispute. His father Kwek Sum Chuan, who founded the company, said there was no such verbal agreement. When they could not agree on the terms of his son's exit, the younger man launched a legal suit. The older man said his son had “seriously mismanaged the company” and that it incurred significant financial losses as a result. The supermarket, located at Block 201B Tampines Street 21, ceased operations in 2018. The H

What surprises us is the faster-than-expected decline in average selling price and the aggressiveness of Chinese glovemakers in terms of their willingness to cut the price in order to grab market share,” said Wong Wei Sum, an analyst with Maybank Investment Bank Bhd. A Top Glove representative didn’t comment for this story. 

But as the chairman of the biggest maker of rubber gloves, the erosion of Lim’s fortune is shaping up to be as dramatic as its rise. And unlike US or European tech founders and crypto traders, Top Glove’s rapid fall could deal a blow to Malaysia, which produces 65 per cent of the world’s supply of gloves. While the nation’s shipments of rubber items surged 50 per cent to almost US$14 billion last year, Chinese competitors have been ramping up production, making the reversal even more severe. 

Lim is hardly the only founder whose fortune skyrocketed during the pandemic and has since come back to Earth. The period minted at least five billionaires in the protective-gear sector alone, including Thai Kim Sim of Supermax, which surged at an even faster pace than Top Glove, not to mention scores of newly rich tech executives and cryptocurrency holders. 

All the while, the value of Lim and his family’s stake in Top Glove slipped: From US$6 billion at its peak in October 2020, to US$4.5 billion four months later, to US$1.6 billion in January. Then last month came the final blow: A 99 per cent plunge in Top Glove’s profit, enough to put those expansion plans on hold. The results are “almost close to the bottom,” Lim said.

Its stock price soared 450 per cent through the first seven months of 2020, leaving high-flyers like Moderna, Zoom Video Communications Peloton Interactive and Carvana in the dust and making Lim a billionaire several times over. The maker of one out of every four gloves in the world said in September 2020 it expected “fresh highs” after profit surged 1,500 per cent. By June 2021, as vaccines rolled out across the globe and more competitors entered the market, that guidance shifted to a gradual decline in selling prices. The company vowed six months later to press forward with an expansion, undeterred by its stock tumbling back to pre-COVID-19 levels.

Tether's Ardoino echoed the sentiment that if bitcoin were to hit $1 million in 90 days, it would likely mean an unusual economic event. "I'm kind of skeptical about that, because honestly, I wouldn't even hope for that," Ardoino told CNBC in an interview at Paris Blockchain Week, that aired Thursday. "Because if bitcoin would reach such a high price level, [it] would mean that the entire economy will crumble. I'm not sure [that] is the world that we want to live in."

A $1 million price on bitcoin would represent a roughly 3,600% increase from the digital currency's current price. Most people have poured cold water on this prediction. Gemini's Beard said "there's probably a world where bitcoin hits a million dollars" but not in 90 days as Srinivasan wagered. "I think for bitcoin to be a million dollars in 90 days, some crazy things are happening in the world, which we don't want," Beard said, adding that it could take 10 years to get anywhere near that figure.

The $1 million bitcoin bet Discussion of where the digital coin's price could go this year has been rife since Balaji Srinivasan, an investor and the former technology chief at Coinbase, wagered on Mar. 17 that bitcoin would be worth $1 million or more in 90 days. He bet $2 million. The wager was in response to a Twitter user who said that they would bet $1 million that the U.S. does not enter hyperinflation. Srinivasan argued that the "world redenominates on Bitcoin as digital gold" as hyperinflation kicks in, erodes the value of the U.S. dollar, and nations, individuals and companies begin to buy large amounts of bitcoin. Hyperinflation is the massive rise in prices in an economy.

For many years, bitcoin advocates have argued bitcoin is a form of "digital gold" — a safe-haven asset that can provide investors a hedge against inflation and an investment in times of turmoil. But over the past few years, bitcoin has traded in correlation with stocks, in particular the tech-heavy Nasdaq. There are now signs of decoupling with bitcoin massively outperforming the Nasdaq, many other risk-assets and gold this year. But bitcoin also got a boost on hopes the banking crisis maybe reduce the U.S. Federal Reserve's ability to be as aggressive on interest rate rises, which would be supportive for risk assets like cryptocurrencies.