Sons And Daughters Of BBCMF China / Asia Technology

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China News: China Aviation Oil shares to resume trading

Shares of China Aviation Oil (Singapore) Corp., suspended since November 2004 after the company’s US$550 million trading loss, will resume trading at the end of March, said Gu Yanfei, head of a restructuring task force.

A meeting will be held in the first week of March where shareholders will vote on the issuance of shares to new investors BP Plc. and Temasek Holdings Pte., as well as creditors, Gu said. They will also approve the new board, which would in turn appoint a new chief executive officer, she said.

“What we are looking at is the management and the governance of the company going forward,” Gu told reporters Friday after a meeting with shareholders, the first since trading of the stock was halted.

China Aviation Oil’s derivatives-related loss was Singapore’s biggest since former trader Nick Leeson lost US$1.4 billion at Barings Plc. in 1995.

Reports by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accounting firm that examined China Aviation Oil’s losses on behalf of Singapore’s stock exchange, said the company overrode risk controls and failed to follow correct accounting procedures.