THE latest exposé by Cecile Jaclyn Thai that she quit the board of Supermax Corp Bhd – Malaysia’s fourth largest glove maker and one that was co-founded by both her parents – due to “bullying and silencing” from fellow board members perhaps best epitomises the generation gap that prevails in many family businesses today.
Far from being sparked by family feud, the entire episode showcases that potential business heirs have their way of thinking, culminating in a ‘more open’ management style or stance that could be directly opposite by the business founders.
Like any other millennial employees whose work personalities differ substantially from their Gen-X and prior superiors, it can be imagined that 35-year-old Cecile who stepped down as Supermax’s non independent and non-executive director on Monday (April 17) over “disagreement with the board on several matters” would not have resorted to wash dirty linen in public overnight.
Whatever said and done, she nevertheless deserved praises for not keeping her silence within the confines of her family home as would many other potential business heirs when they found themselves at odds with their parents who are business owners.
Interestingly, Cecile is an exception of the lot for the typical practice of walking out in silent for the sake of family honour does not appeal to her even if that means she has to confront her father, Datuk Seri Stanley Thai Kim Sim, in her quest to uphold her fiduciary duties.
Being pushed to one corner, her resignation letter dated April 16 which was sighted by theedgemarkets.com claimed there had been concerted attempts by Supermax’s board “to act against corporate governance practices, punish dissent and silence transparency” which led to her decision to step down from her position.
She could have opened up a can of worms that Supermax investors would be thankful for.
Cecile has detailed out in her letter how these disagreements started in November 2021 – a month before her father’s appointment as the group’s executive chairman took effect – when he stated his intention to remove her from the board following her opposition to his proposed purchase of a new aircraft for US$47.39 mil (RM210.32 mil).
The aircraft was to be purchased by Supermax’s subsidiary Maxter Glove Manufacturing Sdn Bhd to replace one that was acquired only a year prior. Cecile rejected the proposal as she believed the proposed acquisition was not in the best interest of the company.
“When I e-mailed the board to clarify that I was in fact not stepping down, Stanley responded that the only position available to me would be a non-executive position, without valid basis or justification,” she revealed.
“Stanley’s stated intentions to remove and later re-designate me arose from the fact that I did not sign the director’s written resolution to approve the proposed acquisition of the new aircraft.”
In fact, some of Cecile’s revelation that would interest market regulators include her accusation that the group has re-scheduled two quarterly board meetings with minimal notice – once in August 2022 and again in February 2023 – to a day she had specifically said she would not be able to join, thus resulting in her to miss the two meetings.
The draft minutes of these meetings, she further claimed, was then withheld from her for over a month after the meeting took place. She only got them on her fourth request, five weeks after the meetings were held.
And the most striking one is Cecile’s claim that a discussion on the group’s corporate governance report, during which she gave her views was also omitted from the minutes of the board meeting.
For the record, Cecile’s father, Stanley Thai had his guilty verdict in relation to an insider trading case of APL Industries Bhd (APLI) shares overturned by the High Court on Sept 29, 2020 after he was earlier sentenced to five years’ jail on Nov 24, 2017 and fined RM5 mil by the Sessions Court.
Somehow during that period of time, Cecile’s mother Datin Seri Cheryl Tan Bee Geok and her sister Tan Bee Hong, too, were convicted of insider trading offences by the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court on Aug 9, 2018.
They were sentenced to a five-year jail term and fined RM7 mil each for insider trading – also involving the shares of APLI – which was once an associate of Supermax.
At the close of yesterday’s (April 19) trading, Supermax was down 7 sen or 7.22% to 90 sen with 44.3 million shares traded, thus valuing the company at RM2.5 bil. – April 20, 2023
