Auditor disclaimed opinions on Loh cousins' Axington after the Bellagraph Nova saga

Axington, a Malaysia-incorporated, Singapore Catalist-listed professional-services group, was bought out in July 2020 by Singaporean cousins Nelson Loh and Terence Loh, co-founders of BN Group. The cousins had just drawn scrutiny for a proposed takeover bid for English football club Newcastle United, after which BN Group's marketing materials were revealed to have been doctored, among other inconsistencies. Axington suspended its shares on 31 August 2020 following media developments around its controlling shareholders.

On 8 July 2021 the company disclosed that independent auditor Foo Kon Tan had issued a disclaimer of opinion on its FY2020 financial statements — it could not obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence across receivables, bank balances, payables, impairments, disposal gains, opening balances and even whether the Malaysian ringgit was the group's proper functional currency. Unresolved items included S$1.1 million outstanding from an August 2020 share placement and two receipts of S$125,000 and S$200,000 from a single company on 19 August 2020 whose purpose the auditor could not ascertain.

The board blamed the breakdown on 'significant changes in its board composition and key management personnel' during the year, said it was seeking legal advice on the unexplained items, and pointed to minimal current activity. Axington was by then a cash company risking delisting if it failed to acquire a new business within a year, and had outsourced its finance function to a third-party service in the interim.

Shares suspended since 31 August 2020; a disclaimer of opinion on FY2020 accounts; cash-company status with delisting risk within a year.

A listed company was bought by personalities whose other venture was already under a doctored-documents cloud — control risk imported wholesale.

Cash movements (placement proceeds, mystery receipts) outran the finance function so badly the auditor could not even opine.

Governance churn — board and management turnover — was offered as explanation after the fact, evidence record-keeping collapsed with it.

Whoever writes the marketing materials writes the audit risk: a controlling shareholder already caught doctoring documents imports control failure into every company it touches.

As of July 2021, Axington remained suspended, was seeking legal advice over the unexplained items, and had a year's window to find an acquisition or be delisted. The material records no resolution.