Acer’s Headquarters Searched in Probe of Alleged Insider Trading

March 25, 2014 Leave a comment

Acer’s Headquarters Searched in Probe of Alleged Insider Trading
Investigation Also Included Search of Homes of Some Employees of the PC Maker, Prosectors Said
ARIES POON
March 18, 2014 8:34 a.m. ET
TAIPEI—Prosecutors in Taiwan searched the headquarters of Acer Inc. 2353.TW -0.82%and some employees’ homes Tuesday as part of an investigation into alleged insider trading of the personal-computer maker’s shares.
The New Taipei District Prosecutors Office said 10 people, some of whom are current Acer employees, were detained and questioned. They are suspected of “violating the Securities and Exchange Act” and “conducting insider-trading activities,” the office said.

The prosecutors’ office declined to name the 10 people, and The Wall Street Journal was unable to reach them or their lawyers for comment.
An Acer representative confirmed the search of the company’s headquarters and said it has “provided related information to authorities in cooperation with the investigation process on alleged insider stock trading by two employees’ individual actions.”
The prosecutors’ office also said it searched 14 locations in Taiwan earlier Tuesday, securing documents and computer files for further investigation.
The office declined to comment further on the investigation.
Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported earlier Tuesday, without citing sources, that some fund managers had allegedly sold down their stakes in Acer before the abrupt resignations of former Chief Executive J.T. Wang and former President Jim Wong on Nov. 21.
Acer’s representative said the company doesn’t know if the probe is related to Mr. Wang’s resignation.
The PC maker’s founder, Stan Shih, returned as chairman, without pay, at the time of Messrs. Wang’s and Wong’s departures in a bid to turn around the unprofitable company.

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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