MARKETS have grown infinitely more sophisticated ever since an English company went public in 1720, claiming it was 'carrying out an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody is to know what it is'.
In the case of Jade Technologies, the house of cards took a full year to crumble. Last January, investor and businessman Anthony Soh announced multi-billion-dollar projects for the two tiny Catalist companies he controlled then: Jade and E3 Holdings.
He was going to plough billions of yuan into developing land in China, mine over $1 billion worth of coal from West Sumatra, invest in an oil refinery, flip property in Malaysia for an instant $9 million profit, and even trade Russian diesel on the side.
Not much is known about Dr Soh's antecedents. In person, he seems competent and quietly charismatic, yet few could have known if he had the ability to execute projects of such diverse challenges. Still, many investors - both small retail punters, and big sophisticated institutions - piled into his companies anyway.
Jade traded at over 50 cents less than 18 months ago and even then seemed undervalued - CIMB said in March the company could have been worth over $1 a share, based on a report by Jones Lang LaSalle Salmans that valued its coal mine asset at that astronomical figure.
In interviews with BT a year ago, Dr Soh paid tribute to those who believed in him then: 'I'm grateful to many of the small household investors . . . they don't know what business we are in, they don't know what it stands for, but they have so much faith.'
On Monday, Jade, now under new management, said it was abandoning the West Sumatra coal mine. A geologic study said the mine didn't hold 40 million tonnes of high-quality coking coal, as anticipated. Instead, it had less than one million tonnes of poor-quality stuff, contaminated with enough sulphur and ash to make it 'unattractive to buyers', Jade said.
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