SINGAPORE: Authorities in Singapore on Tuesday banned a jailed banker from working in its financial services industry for life over his links to the international money-laundering scandal involving neighboring Malaysia’s state fund 1MDB.
Financial regulator the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) handed the punishment to Yeo Jiawei, noting he had been convicted of several 1MDB-linked charges, including money laundering, cheating and tampering with witnesses involved in the probe into the case.
Allegations that huge sums were misappropriated from 1MDB through money laundering triggered a corruption scandal that has embroiled Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who founded the fund.
Najib and the fund have denied wrongdoing.
Yeo, a Singaporean who is a former wealth manager with Swiss bank BSI, is one of several bankers jailed over the affair in the city-state.
He was jailed for 30 months in 2016 and was handed another 54-month sentence in July, which is running concurrently with his first jail term.
Court documents showed that he worked closely with Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, also known as Jho Low, who helped set up 1MDB and is at the heart of the scandal.
Low has denied any wrongdoing.
On Tuesday MAS also handed down a three-year ban to Kevin Scully, chief executive of NRA Capital, saying it had failed to objectively valuate PetroSaudi Oil Services, another firm involved in the 1MDB case.
The latest bans bring the total number of barred 1MDB-linked bankers in Singapore to eight, the financial regulator said.
The 1MDB scandal has been described by prosecutors as the “largest ever money-laundering case” investigated by Singapore’s white-collar crime unit.
The US and Switzerland have also launched investigations into the 1MDB fund but only Singapore has handed down any convictions so far.
Singapore hands life ban to banker in 1MDB-linked cases
Singapore hands life ban to banker in 1MDB-linked cases
Taiba Investments profit rises 9% on stronger pilgrim-driven revenue
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Taiba Investments Co. reported a 9.32 percent rise in annual profit to SR364.8 million ($97.20 million) as higher pilgrim flows lifted revenue to SR1.36 billion, a filing on Tadawul showed.
Net profit attributable to shareholders increased from SR333.7 million a year earlier, with earnings per share climbing to SR1.40 from SR1.28. Revenue rose 3.7 percent to SR1.36 billion in the year ended Dec. 31, compared with SR1.32 billion in 2024.
Taiba, a hospitality and real estate developer backed by the Kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, Public Investment Fund, focuses on hotel and property assets primarily in the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah.
In a Tadawul filing, the company stated: “This growth was primarily driven by improved performance across the company’s segments in Makkah and Madinah, supported by higher numbers of visitors and Umrah pilgrims, the commencement of operations of new facilities, and increased revenues from the real estate segment.”
Taiba Investments reported that the SR31.1 million rise in net profit was mainly attributable to improved operating performance, the reversal of a litigation provision previously recognized in 2023 following the termination of a contractual relationship with one of the operators after a settlement between the parties, and capital gains realized from the expropriation of one of its properties in Madinah.
Total comprehensive income attributable to shareholders declined 55.53 percent to SR198.2 million from SR445.7 million.
Other comprehensive income recorded a loss of SR166.6 million, compared with a gain of SR111.9 million in the previous year, primarily due to a decline in the fair value of financial derivatives used for hedging and a decrease in the market value of certain investments measured at fair value through other comprehensive income.
Shareholders’ equity increased marginally by 0.04 percent to SR6.85 billion. Taiba's share price saw a 3.03 percent increase to SR34 by 10:20 am Saudi time.
