- LOCAL businessman Oei Hong Leong - dubbed the 'man with the Midas touch' - lost a whopping $1 billion on foreign exchange and US Treasury bond transactions last year.
While he has fully paid off these losses, he is now suing Citigroup's private banking arm in the High Court for negligence and misrepresentation, legal documents seen by The Straits Times reveal.
Mr Oei claims that the bank - with which he has a 30-year relationship - repeatedly gave him an inaccurate picture of his trading exposure, causing him to take on more positions than he would have otherwise done so.
When he knew the full extent of his exposure, he felt he had no choice but to close his positions - at an extremely volatile time last October - thus suffering massive losses.
It is not clear how much of a beating Mr Oei's net worth has taken, but he was ranked Singapore's 29th richest man by Forbes last year with a net worth of only US$210 million (S$308 million). Forbes bases its listing on stakes in publicly traded companies and in private company filings.
Ironically, Mr Oei has become the latest high-profile victim of the financial crisis because he was trying to reduce his exposure.
In 2007, he believed that the global economy would experience a downturn and decided to trim his trading positions, his statement of claim says.
Meanwhile, he told his private bankers that he wanted to maintain a margin surplus of about US$100 million.
This is cash placed with a bank and clients can trade up to several times that amount. If the trades run up losses, this margin has to be topped up.
Following a change of relationship manager last year, Mr Oei dealt mainly with two assistants in the private banking department, whom he would call to check on the balance on a daily basis.
What an incredible lawsuit!
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