Disgraced tycoon Sok Bun will terminate his joint venture agreement with Singaporean real estate developer Teho International for the $500 million “The Bay” condominium and hotel project, according to a company filing on the Singapore stock exchange yesterday.
The convicted businessman’s firm, Sok Bun Group, was a 51 per cent partner in Teho Cambodia, which, according to the filing, will now be transferred to Yim Chhay Line, who is the daughter of Deputy Prime Minister Yim Chhay Ly and was appointed board director after Bun’s resignation last July.
“The joint venture agreement shall be terminated with mutual consent and each party is released from its obligations under the agreement,” the filing read. “Sok Bun agrees to transfer 510 ordinary shares representing 51 per cent of the total issued share capital of the joint venture to Mrs Yim Chhay Line.”
Sok Bun was sentenced last week to a 10-month suspended prison sentence for the savage beating last year of former television presenter Ek Socheata, better known to her fans as Ms Sasa. The highly publicised case resulted in Bun resigning from Teho Cambodia’s board, but his firm continued to hold a 51 per cent stake in the project.
Following his resignation, Chhay Line replaced Bun as director last August.
But Bun’s tribulations did not end there. In December, he lost his licensing rights to ECG (Cambodia), the parent company of which is ECG Property – a wholly owned subsidiary of Teho that handles the developer’s marketing and promotional activity.
Kevin Goos, CEO of Century 21 Cambodia, said the termination of the joint venture agreement will help Teho jumpstart its efforts to rebrand and increase sales in Cambodia, adding that the Sok Bun episode hurt their image in the country.
“That definitely did hurt them in Cambodia, as it [The Bay] was known as Sok Bun’s condo,” he said.
While Teho would use this change to look for new shareholders and increase its marketing activity, Goos said, the association with Sok Bun did not hurt the company’s reputation in Singapore – where the disgraced tycoon was just another director in one of its joint ventures.
