SHAREHOLDERS of embattled private cord-blood bank Cordlife Group voted to remove several directors from its board at the company’s annual general meeting (AGM) on Tuesday (May 14) .
Around 60 per cent of present shareholders voted in favour of resolutions to remove acting chairman Dr Ho Choon Hou and independent director Yeo Hwee Tiong.
Shareholders also voted against the re-election of another independent director, Titus Cheong. He will retire at the end of the AGM.
Meanwhile, three directors proposed by substantial shareholder Nanjing Xinjiekou Department Store were elected to the board. They are Teo Tong Kooi, Xu Tianhong and Cai Yong.
Around 200 million shares of Cordlife’s 255,977,394 ordinary shares were represented at the AGM.
The FY2023 AGM was one to watch for investors of the beleaguered cord-blood bank, as its two substantial shareholders – TransGlobal Real Estate Group and Nanjing Xinjiekou Department Store – requisitioned separate resolutions to vote out several board directors.
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Nanjing Xinjiekou came into the public eye in March after it sent a notice, through nominee Phillip Securities, requisitioning an extraordinary general meeting.
The notice included four resolutions concerning the removal of four directors – acting chairman Ho and independent directors Yeo, Cheong and Joseph Wong.
The remaining three resolutions concerned the appointment of three individuals – Teo, Xu and Cai – to the board.
Wong is also the company’s former chairman, who stepped down in February. He had since indicated his intention to retire after the AGM.
All of Nanjing Xinjiekou’s resolutions were tabled at the AGM.
Meanwhile, TransGlobal had requisitioned resolutions to remove from the board a Nanjing Xinjiekou-nominated director, Zhai Lingyun, as well as “Shally Chen”, whose Chinese name is Chen Xuanli.
Cordlife tabled the resolution to remove Zhai, but not the one removing Chen as the company said Chen is not listed on the company’s business profile as a director, based on Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority of Singapore records as at Mar 27.
Checks by The Business Times found that Chen’s name in her LinkedIn profile was “Xiaoling Chen”, and was spelt as such in Cordlife’s annual reports.
A spokesperson for Cordlife Singapore later confirmed to BT that the name difference was the reason why the resolution was rejected.
After Nanjing Xinjiekou’s resolutions were passed, TransGlobal nominee director Yiu Ming Yiu asked to withdraw all of TransGlobal’s resolutions. The resolution to remove Zhai was therefore not voted on.
The requisitioned resolutions, which were to be voted at the earliest possible juncture at an extraordinary general meeting or the next AGM, came after Cordlife was thrust into the spotlight for lapses faced by its storage tanks.
To recap, seven of Cordlife’s 22 storage tanks were exposed to temperatures above acceptable limits at different periods since November 2020. The lapses were uncovered by the Ministry of Health (MOH), which suspended the cord-blood bank from collecting or processing new cord blood for six months.
Thus far, MOH’s expert panel has found that around 7,500 cryopreserved cord-blood units stored by Cordlife in two tanks and a dry shipper have been damaged or deemed at “high risk of being adversely affected by the temperature excursions”.
