Not-so Frank Students Account

JPMorgan Chase has taken down the website for a student-aid platform it acquired two years ago for $175 million after accusing the founder of widespread fraud. The financial giant claims it was sold a “lie” by fintech startup Frank, and is suing 30-year-old founder Charlie Javice and other former executives for reportedly lying about how successful the company was, namely by creating a massive database of fake users to fool the bank when it asked for proof.

5 Million Students Over 6,000 Colleges - JPMorgan made that whopping nine-figure investment in Frank - described by Javice as “Amazon for higher education”—in 2021 after the startup had already attracted support from billionaire Marc Rowan and a range of others, including VC Aleph, edtech investor Reach Capital, and homeowrk-helper app maker Chegg. At the time, Javice boasted about the JPMorgan deal on LinkedIn, writing that Frank was already “serving over 5 million students at over 6,000 colleges.”

JPMorgan claimed Javice lied “about Frank’s success, Frank’s size, and the depth of Frank’s market penetration.” Javice “represented in documents placed in the acquisition data room, in pitch materials, and through verbal presentations [that] more than 4.25 million students had created Frank accounts to begin applying for federal student aid using Frank’s application tool.”

JPMorgan claims in its suit that it learned the truth about Frank only after sending emails to about 400,000 customers, the overwhelming majority of which bounced back. Instead of getting a business with 4 million clients, JPMorgan learned months later that it had gotten stuck with one with “fewer than 300,000 customers,” the bank’s lawsuit contends.

Fake Accounts - Javice is accused of hiring a data scientist to invent fake accounts, giving the impression during JPMorgan’s due diligence process that Frank’s customer base contained more people than the city of Los Angeles—when in reality, it was smaller than Lexington, Kentucky. Javice’s roster allegedly contained “a list of names, addresses, dates of birth, and other personal information for 4.265 million “students” who did not actually exist.” The bank claims Javice initially fought its request to provide customer metrics, arguing that sharing such a list raised “privacy concerns.” After the bank’s team insisted, Javice “chose to invent several million Frank customer accounts out of whole cloth.”

The suit includes screenshots of Javice’s presentations where she depicted Frank’s growth, showing more than 4 million customers.

Managing Toxic Bosses

Managers account for around 30% of the variability in employees engagement and performance. In other words, the degree to which you love or hate your job, and are good or bad at it, is largely dependent on the boss you have. This is why picking the right boss is probably as important as picking the right job, career, or romantic partner. Some of the attributes that make bosses good or bad are purely dependent on their personality, which explains up to 50%. 

Here are five recommendations to manage your bosses.

Learn To Predict Them - Most of the managers described as “bad bosses” display a consistent pattern of behaviors—including their bad or undesirable habits—that you can prepare for and preempt. Disliking bad news, overreacting to certain comments or triggers, or the inability to deal with negative feedback are examples of what irritating bosses do, just like strong rain, winds, and low temperatures are examples of a bad climate region. Learn to decode your boss, and most of the problems they cause you will go away, even if the reason is that you have managed to lower your expectations.

Adjust Your Behavior - No matter how smart and interesting you think you are, don’t assume that others agree with you. No matter how great your boss thinks you are, there’s a strong chance that they still think they are better than you. And even if they don’t, they may feel they need to pretend they do. 

Of the many ways you may consider relating to your boss, there is no more important way than to accommodate your behavior to their preference. This includes trivial things, like going with their preferences and suggestions, even if they ask you for yours. And substantial things like ensuring you don’t do anything that significantly annoys them, or say things they clearly dislike. Adjusting your behavior to your boss is a social skills and it is natural act that follows from learning to predict them.

Make Yourself Useful To Them - Most managers will appreciate people who make them look good, especially with their own managers. Think about what your boss is trying to achieve, and focus your efforts on helping them achieve it. Sadly, most people are too focused on themselves and their own careers to focus on advancing their manager’s, which, ironically, is the best way to advance their own career.

Practice Self-coaching -  The most successful people understand that they are a work in progress. This means learning new behaviors and unlearning bad ones. It means learning to go against your nature, controlling, or mitigating the negative tendencies that may impair your reputation. Improving your self-awareness, so you can understand how people see you and what they think of you, is key to improving your professional self and upgrading your reputation.

The same people who complain about their boss are often unaware of how they are seen by others, including their boss, which stops them from getting better. If you spend less time complaining about your manager, and more time understanding why people may complain about you, you will become more rewarding to deal with, which will even help you get along with your boss. 

Avoid Working For Toxic Boss - Sometimes there’s just no fix to improving your relationship with your boss, because your boss truly is the problem. The only fix is to get away as fast as you can from toxic personality traits with destructive and parasitic leadership. Instead of developing immunity to such parasitic individuals, it is healthier to move to less contaminated or toxic environments. 

Any relationship requires both parties to make an effort to improve things, but even if one of the two attempts this, both sides will benefit. 

Zilingo - From Hero To Zero

Zilingo, one of Singapore's startups, has suspended chief executive officer Ankiti Bose after an effort to raise new funding led to questions about the company's accounting. The company, which supplies technology to apparel merchants and factories, had been trying to raise US$150 million to US$200 million when investors began to question its finances as part of the due diligence process.

The investment - which could have boosted Zilingo's valuation to more than US$1 billion. The startup's investors, which include Temasek Holdings and Sequoia Capital India, have started an investigation into the financial practices.

Zilingo's auditor raised questions about its accounting. The concerns centre on the way that Zilingo, which regulators said had not filed annual financial statements since 2019, accounted for transactions and revenue across a platform spanning thousands of small merchants.

Bose Claimed No Wrong - Bose has disputed allegations of wrongdoing and contends her suspension was due in part to her complaints about harassment. She has hired an attorney to represent her and has called the investigation a "witch hunt".

The exposure represents a dramatic turn of fate for one of Singapore's most celebrated startups. Zilingo was founded by Bose and chief technology and product officer Dhruv Kapoor in Singapore seven years ago to help small businesses across South and Southeast Asia sell their goods online.

What Zilingo Offers - The company began by working with small merchants that sell to consumers, and then expanded into adjacent areas. As the founders started talking with small sellers, they realised many lacked access to robust technology and essential capital.

That led them to develop software and other tools that would allow merchants to access factories in places like Vietnam or Bangalore, and would smooth the complicated process of shipping across borders. In 2018, Zilingo began to team up with financial technology firms to provide working capital to small sellers so they can buy raw materials to produce goods.

In early 2019, Zilingo raised US$226 million from investors including Sequoia and Temasek, and pushed its valuation to US$970 million, almost the US$1 billion mark that earns startups designation as a unicorn. Bose, then 27, was celebrated as a visionary and a sign of the entrepreneurial potential for Southeast Asia. Bose had worked at Sequoia earlier and had said the experience helped her build the startup.

Blame It On Covid - Zilingo, which had grown into a full-blown marketplace for wholesale buyers and sellers in the fashion industry, faced growth troubles after pandemic-fuelled restrictions forced many small businesses to shut their doors.

To rein in its own costs, Zilingo said it cut a number of jobs in 2020 and downsized marketing, sourcing and support teams in the US, Australia, Singapore and Indonesia. The company made an aggressive pitch in its latest effort to raise fresh capital.

Late last year, it forecast that core net revenue would rise from about US$40 million in fiscal 2021 to roughly US$60 million in fiscal 2022 and US$100 million the year after. Zilingo said it anticipated breaking even on core Ebitda - or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation - in fiscal 2023 and then reach almost US$200 million in fiscal 2026.

On March 31, Bose was called to a meeting with three board members and told about "serious" complaints about discrepancies in accounts and mismanagement. She was later questioned by two people from Kroll, the investigations firm. Her suspension is scheduled to run until May 5.

Ruyi Technology Losses Shine

Ruyi Technology Group, a luxury fashion conglomerate with plans on becoming China's LVMH, has defaulted on more debt bringing the total amount to about CNY9 billion (USD1.3 billion). Ruyi failed to follow court orders and repay debt worth more than CNY1.1 billion, according to recent entries on corporate information platform Tianyancha.

Chairman Qiu Yafu, who took control of Ruyi in 2009, declared his intention to turn the Jining-based firm into China's LVMH in 2018. But the company’s breakneck acquisition of overseas fashion brands and a pandemic has upended that.

Ruyi was hit by the bankruptcy of firms it owns, credit rating downgrades, and overdue payment of huge debts in 2020, and, unable to raise the funds, also failed to complete its acquisition of Swiss luxury fashion house Bally that year.

The company, which owns Shenzhen-listed Shandong Ruyi Woolen Garment Group, has invested in 46 firms, while its unit Ruyi Fashion has invested in 44 others, according to data from Tianyancha.

Ruyi bought French apparel and accessories company SMCP for EUR1.3 billion (USD1.3 billion) in 2016. The following year, SMCP went public in Paris, posting almost 100 percent revenue growth about three years after its acquisition.

But Ruyi lost its position as SMCP's biggest shareholder in 2021 following default on a EUR250 million (USD257.3 million) debt. Earlier this year, SMCP's shareholders voted to dissolve the board, leading to Qiu losing control of the French firm.

Ruyi also acquired British luxury brand Aquascutum, Israel men's wear group Bagir, and other fashion brands. In January 2019, it acquired US-based synthetic fibers and polymers giant Invista for USD2.6 billion. This February, Ruyi's creditors began to seek control of Invista due to a default on a USD400 million loan.

Qiu has gradually lost control of various companies following a string of defaults. As the actual controller of these companies, he is now classified as having failed to fulfill court orders and is restricted from high-level consumption.

Penny Stock John Soh Chee Wen

The mastermind of a scheme that led to the largest and most serious case of market manipulation in Singapore, which wiped out S$8 billion from the Singapore stock market in 2013, was sentenced on Wednesday (Dec 28).

John Soh Chee Wen, a prominent Malaysian businessman, was handed 36 years' jail. His ex-partner and accomplice Quah Su-Ling, former CEO of Singapore Exchange(SGX)-listed IPCO International, was given 20 years' jail. Soh and Quah had been convicted of 180 and 169 charges respectively after a long-running trial spanning almost 200 days and involving close to 100 prosecution witnesses.

From August 2012 to October 2013, Quah and Soh artificially inflated the share prices of three penny stocks: Blumont, Asiasons and LionGold. They controlled, obtained financing for, conducted illegitimate trading activity in and coordinated their use of 189 securities trading accounts. These accounts were held with 20 financial institutions in the names of 60 individuals and companies.

The bulk of their charges - 106 counts of deception - were for deceiving financial institutions by concealing their involvement when giving instructions to make orders and trades. Soh was additionally found guilty of witness tampering by asking four witnesses to lie to investigators after the stock market crash.

The scheme unravelled on Oct 4, 2013 when the share prices of the three companies crashed, erasing S$8 billion in market capitalisation from SGX.

The prosecution had sought 40 years' jail for Soh, and 19-and-a-half years for Quah, who was less culpable. A third co-accused, 59-year-old Goh Hin Calm, was sentenced to 3 years' jail in 2019 after pleading guilty to two charges of false trading and market rigging.

Bellagraph Nova Group Crashed

A Singaporean businessman who made the news in August 2020 - attempting to buy English Premier League football club Newcastle United but left Singapore weeks later amid allegations of accounting irregularities has been caught in China. Entrepreneur Nelson Loh Ne-Loon, a director of Novena Global Healthcare Group, was sent back to Singapore on Saturday (Dec 24), along with an employee of the company. Loh and and his employee Wong Soon Yuh, both 43, were arrested on the same day. They were charged in court on Monday with two counts of forgery, the police said in a statement.    

Loh also headed the Bellagraph Nova Group along with his cousin Terence Loh and their Chinese business partner, Evangeline Shen. The company had attempted to buy English Premier League club Newcastle United in August 2020 for £280 million (S$490 million at that time) but reports about manipulated photos used in its marketing materials started to emerge.  

Prior to that, not much was known about Bellagraph Nova Group, though it claimed then it had 31 business "entities" worldwide, with a group revenue of US$12 billion (S$16.43 billion) in 2019 and 23,000 employees. 

Nelson Loh was declared a bankrupt in early 2021, according to reports.

Forged Audited Financial Statements - The police said on Monday that Loh and Wong, a Singaporean who worked closely with him, had allegedly forged audited financial statements of NGHG in 2019, and used those statements to obtain bank loans amounting to S$18 million.

It was previously reported that Novena Global Healthcare and Novena Life Sciences had failed to file annual returns due on July 29, 2018 and Dec 9, 2019 respectively.

Days after the pair left Singapore in early September 2020, the police received a report that signatures of accounting firm Ernst & Young had allegedly been forged on some of NHGH’s financial statements.

Warrants of arrest and Interpol Red Notices — request to law enforcement agencies worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person, pending extradition, surrender or similar legal action — were subsequently issued against them. The two men were then detained by the Chinese authorities and returned to Singapore on Dec 24, where they were arrested by the Commercial Affairs Department,

Cancer Updates 2022 - Malaysia

More than 20,000 new cancer patients, with an average age of over 40 years, are detected in Malaysia every year. There were currently about 100,000 cancer survivors in the country who were living with various types of cancer.

NCSM is planning to implement the 'One District, One Screening' program in all states next year to encourage and facilitate the people in the country to do health screening, especially to detect cancer. It is aimed at detecting cancer at an early stage so that immediate treatment could be carried out, thus preventing cancer cells from spreading and saving lives.

Over the past two years, there were more new cancer patients aged between their late 20s and early 30s. The age of individuals diagnosed with cancer is now younger and the number of children with cancer is also high.

For men, there are 10 types of cancer that often affect them and the highest category recorded is bowel cancer, followed by lung, prostate, lymphoma, nasopharynx, liver, leukemia, stomach, skin and bladder. 

For women, the highest case involved breast cancer, followed by colorectal or bowel, cervix, lung, ovary, corpus uteri, lymphoma, thyroid, leukemia and skin.

However, he said, the number of cervical cancer patients had dropped in recent years, believed to be due to the administration of the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine for school students, especially among teenage girls as young as 13 years old.