KUALA LUMPUR (July 19): Green Packet founder and former managing director Puan Chan Cheong, or better known as CC Puan, has been issued bankruptcy notices by the High Court in May this year in relation to his failure to settle a RM30.66 million sum.

According to court documents sighted by The Edge, the bankruptcy notices were filed by Medinis Sdn Bhd (MSB) and Everegion Sdn Bhd (ESB) respectively, after Puan had failed to pay a combined sum of RM30.66 million to the two companies, in relation to the High Court’s judgement in relation to three put option agreements.

Last year, the High Court ordered Puan to pay a total of RM22.86 million to MSB in exchange for 60 million ordinary shares of G3 Global Bhd, and in a separate judgement ordered Puan to pay RM7.8 million to ESB in exchange for 20 million G3 Global shares.

The amounts were owed as three put option agreements — two with MSB and one with ESB — were exercised by the two plaintiffs.

Under the put option dated Jan 25, 2021 (Put Option 1), the defendant is required to purchase five million warrants for RM7.5 million, although following the exercising of the warrants and a subsequent bonus issue exercise, the units have been converted to 20 million G3 Global ordinary shares.

Similarly, pursuant to the put option dated Feb 9, 2021 (Put Option 2), the defendant is required to buy back 10 million warrants for RM15 million. These warrants have since been converted to 40 million G3 Global shares.

Both of these put option agreements were entered into with MSB.

The third put option agreement, also dated Jan 25, 2021 (Put Option 3), was entered into with ESB. This agreement requires Puan to acquire five million warrants — now 20 million G3 Global shares — for another RM7.5 million.

Puan requested for 90-day extensions for the three agreements, which was declined by MSB and ESB. The defendant has yet to settle these amounts.

Put option agreements a facade

According to an affidavit filed by Puan last October, he claims that the put option agreements were merely a facade for a RM20 million loan from Datuk Yip Yee Foo, who transferred the loan amount via his two nominees — MSB and ESB.

Puan said the two companies were purportedly represented as licensed moneylenders.

He contended that the loan agreement was the “actual agreement” entered into with Yip, who required that Bursa Malaysia-listed securities be used as collateral for the loan.

The collateral would then be returned to Puan once the loan has been settled.

To facilitate his side of the deal, Puan had caused the transfer of 10 million warrants from Lim Boon Hong and another 10 million warrants from Lim’s company Odyssey Mission Sdn Bhd to be transferred to ESB and MSB. The 20 million warrants were worth RM20 million.

However, Puan claimed that he later found out that the loan agreement was “illegal”, due to ESB and MSB not having the appropriate licences to be giving out loans.

He said this was the reason behind Yip’s suggestion to “camouflage” the loan agreement with the put option agreements, as the two companies had been operating as unlicensed moneylenders.

He also claimed that the conversion of the warrants into G3 Global shares — done without Puan’s knowledge or agreement — was in breach of the terms of the put option agreements, as well as the loan agreement.

He added that the conversion of the warrants had caused losses.

“In any case, I can no longer procure the relevant G3 Global warrants (which were unique) to return them to Lim and Odyssey,” he said.

Shares in G3 Global finished up half a sen or 14.29% at four sen on Tuesday (July 19), giving it a market capitalisation of RM116.11 million.