Mulberry billionaire Ong Beng Seng charged in Singapore over gifts

Mulberry’s billionaire backer has been charged in Singapore over the case of a former cabinet minister who was sentenced to jail for obtaining gifts from him.
Ong Beng Seng, who holds a controlling stake in the luxury goods company, did not enter a plea in response to charges of abetment and obstruction of justice.A spokeswoman for Ong said: “Mr Ong is seeking legal advice on the charges. As this is an ongoing matter, he is unable to provide further details at this point.”
The charges relate to Subramaniam Iswaran, a former transport minister and a cabinet member for 13 years, who pleaded guilty to charges of obtaining valuable items as a public servant and obstruction of justice and was sentenced to a year in jail.
Prosecutors during his trial claimed that he had received gifts from Ong worth more than $300,000, including tickets to English Premier League football matches, the Formula 1 Grand Prix, London musicals and a ride on a private jet to Doha. Iswaran’s lawyers argued that they were gifts from a friend.
Justice Vincent Hoong said in sentencing Iswaran: “Trust and confidence in public institutions were the bedrock of effective governance, which could all too easily be undermined by the appearance that an individual public servant had fallen below the standards of integrity and accountability.”
Ong, 78, who owns the Singapore-listed Hotel Properties, holds the rights to the Singapore Grand Prix.
In Britain he is fending off a takeover approach for Mulberry from Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group. The London-listed retailer is Mulberry’s second-largest shareholder, with a 37 per cent stake, and has made an £83 million offer for the company. The offer was rejected by Challice Group, the vehicle controlled by the Ong family. Challice’s stake in Mulberry is 56 per cent.
Frasers, which owns Flannels, Sports Direct and House of Fraser, made a 130p-per-share bid, representing an 11 per cent premium to Mulberry’s share price the day before the deal was disclosed.
The retail conglomerate bought another 3.96 million shares in Mulberry for 100p-per-share on Friday. Frasers’ stake in the group will remain the same as it was participating in a wider sale of 10 million shares by Mulberry.
Mulberry, which is based in Bath, was founded in 1971. It has struggled amid the global downturn in luxury goods and warned in May that the challenging environment could last for a prolonged period as it reported a slump in sales.
The $350 billion global luxury sector, often resilient to economic headwinds, has suffered a drop in demand in Europe, China and North America owing to rising inflation and economic instability. Mulberry closed its Bond Street shop last year, blaming the end of VAT-free shopping for tourists.