SingPost fires CEO, CFO over handling of whistleblower’s report

Photo credit: SingPost

Singapore Post (SingPost) has terminated the employment of three of its senior management staff as they were found to be negligent in the handling of internal investigations over a whistleblower’s report that it received earlier this year.

The employment of group chief executive Vincent Phang, group chief financial officer Vincent Yik, and the chief executive of the company’s international business unit (IBU) Li Yu were terminated with immediate effect on Dec 21, 2024.

Phang was also asked to resign as a director of SingPost and all its related companies, the company said in a bourse filing on Sunday (Dec 22).

SingPost will announce the appointment of its new group CEO “in due course,” while Isaac Mah, current CFO of its Australian business, the FMH Group, will be appointed as the new group CFO.

Meanwhile, an acting CEO will be appointed to lead the IBU pending a board review of the unit – no appointment of a new IBU CEO is being proposed at this stage.

Board chairman Simon Israel will provide increased guidance to and exercise greater oversight of the senior management leadership team.

Whistleblowing report and internal investigations

SingPost said it received a whistleblowing report relating to its non-regulated international ecommerce logistics parcels business earlier this year.

Investigations by the company into the report found that three managers in the IBU had “committed serious breaches of the company’s code of conduct” for deliveries for “one of its largest” customers.

They had performed or approved manual updates of the “delivery failure” status code for parcels SingPost had agreed to deliver – without supporting documents and even though no delivery attempt had been made.

The employment of these three individuals was terminated earlier, and the company has also made a police report against them.

The company said that in the course of internal investigations, external professional advisers were engaged to review and assess the matter independently of management, as the audit committee had “no assurance concerning management’s representations and handling of the internal investigations.”

An external law firm was subsequently engaged to review management’s conduct in the matter.

SingPost found that the group CEO, group CFO and the CEO of the IBU were “grossly negligent” in the handling of the internal investigations, and had not considered material facts that compromised their decision-making and/or failed to perform their duties responsibly and reliably.