Kuok Khoon Hong rejects conviction of Wilmar’s China unit

Wilmar International's chairman and chief executive officer Kuok Khoon Hong said he is “deeply shocked” that a China subsidiary of the group has been found guilty of contract fraud and ordered to bear losses amounting to 1.88 billion yuan (S$345.4 million).

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The palm oil billionaire said it was “absolutely inconceivable” for the group to jeopardise its longstanding China commitment or to “tarnish the strong reputation the Kuok family has built over decades”.

He added in a bourse filing on Nov 22 that the group would not do so “all for the sake of such a minor potential benefit and by assisting in defrauding a state-owned enterprise”.

“If I had truly done such a thing, I believe my uncle, Robert Kuok, would expel me from the Kuok family even before any punishment from Chinese judicial authorities,” he said.

Yihai (Guangzhou) Oils & Grains Industries Co (Guangzhou Yihai) was sued by the public prosecutor in China in January 2024 as an “accomplice” in contract fraud related to palm oil trades between state-owned enterprise Anhui Huawen and a privately owned counter-party, Yunnan Huijia Import & Export Co. The alleged fraud led to a 5.2 billion yuan loss for Anhui Huawen.

The judgement was handed down on Nov 19 by the Intermediate People’s Court of Huaibei City against Guangzhou Yihai - a subsidiary of Wilmar’s Shenzhen-listed arm, Yihai Kerry Arawana (YKA). YKA is 89.99 per cent owned by Wilmar.

“As a member of the patriotic overseas Chinese Kuok family, the family has... cared deeply for China for decades,’ YKA said in the bourse filing, which summarised what transpired during an investors’ briefing on Nov 21.

To date, YKA has invested nearly 100 billion yuan in China and has been “deeply cultivating the Chinese market for over thirty years”, Mr Kuok said.