James Ting, remember him? You will if you were caught in the financial debacle known as Semi-Tech Corp. in the mid-1990s. It was a nasty thing, involving bad bonds, bad behaviour and Canadian shareholders burned for hundreds of millions.
But here is cheery news: Ting, owner/operator, is on trial in a Hong Kong court even as we speak. Now 54 -- I remember when he was billed as a boy wonder -- he raised zillions on the promise of taking clapped-out companies, such as Singer Sewing Machine, and relocating the jobs to the Third World in order (in theory) to make huge profits.
A while back, he'd been hunkered down in Shanghai, thereby avoiding civil and criminal charges in Hong Kong. But, two years ago, he stepped off a plane in Macau and was nabbed by police. The criminal trial that started yesterday and should go on for a month centres on allegations of false accounting in a Semi-Tech successor, Akai Holdings.
Akai once produced six million television sets a year, had sales of $5-billion (U.S.) and a market capitalization of $4.5-billion. Somehow, between 1996 and 2000, a lot of that money went missing. Liquidators ultimately could find $2.39-million, although they did notice that about $700-million of Akai assets wound up in two outfits associated with Ting.
The former boy wonder says he is not guilty, but still, he has some explaining to do.
PLEASE DON'T EAT THE DAISES The young, the bold and the beautiful in Toronto can find each other at their private club, the Spoke Club, the enterprise of, among others, a scion of billionaire Galen Weston.
Spring has sprung there at the rooftop lounge and a recent missive from the club to its members included this handy reminder: "Please note that plants are provided for shade and colour and are not to be consumed or used as a lavatory."
Of course, classy gents such as Toronto media butterfly John Fraser and his recent lunch guest Conrad Black need no such house training.
KIDS' CAMP BACK-STOPPED After Tuesday's mention that Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment had made its Go Leafs Go funding for Toronto downtown charity Dixon Hall a goner, there's good news.
Doug Jamieson, the cause's director of fundraising, reports that movers and shakers Tippet-Richardson Ltd. have shown more pluck and picked up the puck, promising $10,000.
And an individual sent along $1,000 after reading about it here.