Tipsy Collective case: Defendants claim firm owes millions

They cite alleged financial mismanagement and lack of transparency by co-founders

- joyce Lim

The cost of developing the Tipsy Unicorn beach club in Sentosa had in 2023 overrun its budget, doubling from $3 million to $6 million, despite warnings from shareholders that the project was financially risky.

This instance of alleged financial mismanagement emerged in new court documents from a lawsuit involving the control of home-grown hospitality group Tipsy Collective.

The Straits Times had earlier in September reported that the group's co-founder and executive chairman David Gan Jia Liang was suing eight parties, which included shareholders and investors, for attempting to seize control of the company.

The defendants - including Indonesian investors Reino Ramaputra Barack and Santosa Kadiman, Singaporean Rudy Hartono Widjaja and four shareholders - recently filed court papers outlining their defence, which ST has obtained.

The four shareholders named in the lawsuit are Steady Property Trading, Novus International Enterprises, Whiterock Asia Resources and Mr Tora Widjaja - the son of Mr Rudy Hartono Widjaja. Together, the shareholders own 59.39 per cent of shares, a majority stake in the company.

In their court filings, the defendants said they had opposed developing Tipsy Unicorn - a 19,000 sq ft beach club on Sentosa's Siloso Beach that opened in September 2023 - from the start because it was "too financially risky".