SMRT: How long will new CFO last?

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Going by recent form, not very long because the previous one lasted all of 8 months and the one before that 30 months*.. The new CFO assumed the post last Saturday. He was previously SMRT’s head of its strategic finance and business structuring advisory office. He only joined SMRT in October 2013.

If SMRT had been an ordinary listco, the share price would have plunged when the previous CFO resigned because when a new CFO resigns (especiallt when the CFO is from outside the organisation) so quickly after starting work, investors worry about financial irregularities. More so given that the previous CFO lasted 30 months.

But the market took the resignation in its stride because SMRT is a TLC and TLCs (and other GLCs) don’t do financial irregularities despite what the anti-PAP cybernuts say. Even TRE (no cybernut) didn’t bother, implying that the CEO and other ex-SAF senior mgrs wanted to bring in another ewx-SAFer.

What is worrying is that despite all the ex-SAFers, SMRT’s security is still so lousy in a region where there are Muslims willing to die for Jihad. :

The two Germans charged for their alleged involvement in a case of vandalism of an SMRT train at Bishan Depot have been slapped with two additional charges each on Friday (Nov 28).

Andreas Von Knorre and Elton Hinz, both aged 21, are accused of entering the depot without authorisation on two other occasions – once on Nov 6 at about 2.43am and another on Nov 7 at about 2.20am.

The two men were first charged on Nov 22 at the State Courts. They each faced two charges of entering the depot without authorisation on Nov 8 between 2.48am and 3.29am, and using spray paint to paint graffiti on the left exterior cabin of an SMRT train at the depot. (CNA)

Taz right, they broke in three times in three days, implying that the first two times their entries went undetected.

In any organisation such a lapse of security is unforgivable; more so here where commuters lives can be dangered and the economy wrecked by such break-ins (if bombs had been planted …), and where the senior managers are all military men.

LTA and DPM Teo should be puttingb some serious pressure on SMRT to improve its security before a bomb explodes on the MRT, killing S’poreans and the PAP’s much loved FTs., and wrecking the economy.

——

*SMRT has lost 3 CFOs since 2011 when SMRT trains started breaking down regularly (The CEO CEO Saw Phaik Hwa “resigned” in January 2012 after one P Ravi .) .

In September 2011, CFO Lim Cheng Cheng left and was replaced by Catherine Lee Khia Yee.
In January this year, SMRT announced that Ms Lee had resigned from the company to “pursue other career opportunities”. The same announcement said that Sam Ong, Hyflux’s Group Senior EVP and Group Deputy CEO, would take over from her on 1 March as SMRT’s new CFO. Ms Lee left SMRT after 2.5 years there. She is currently CFO at Clifford Capital.

Just 8 months later, Mr Ong has also left.

SMRT says in its statement to the stock exchange, saying that Mr Ong left to “pursue philanthropic interests and business prospects”.

https://atans1.wordpress.com/2014/12...-really-worry/


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