Ayondo's former interim CEO, Richard Mark Street seeks to get paid for what he claims is an outstanding sum of nearly $40,000 owed by the Catalist-listed Fintech in unpaid salary and the removal of his directorship from the social trading network, GmbH.
Mr Street came on board as interim Chief Executive Officer in January 2019, following an exodus of senior executives in prior months including his predecessor Robert Lempka. He tendered his resignation in June of the same year, citing pursuing other career opportunities and for personal reasons.
Ayondo, which was the first fintech company to IPO on the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX), faced working capital deficiency from continued losses. According to its filings, the business was hit hard by regulatory changes relating to product intervention imposed by European and UK regulators.
Shares of Ayondo were halted and then suspended from trading since January 30, 2019, after it faced intense scrutiny over its financial situation, business viability issues, and concerns raised by regulators over its compliance requirements in the UK. Its most recent application to extend the submission deadline for a proposal to resume trading has been accepted in October 2020 by the Singapore Exchange (SGX).
To resolve these issues, Ayondo tried to reduce its liabilities through the sale of its UK unit Ayondo Markets Limited (AML) for £5.7 million to its Netherlands-based white label partner, BUX Holdings. The deal was completed in mid-2019 after Singapore’s regulators had told Ayondo to put on hold its plan to dispose of AML pending clarity over its financial situation and compliance.
Ayondo offers a broad spectrum of social trading and brokerage services that cover both retail and institutional sectors. The group claims to have 210,000 users from 195 countries on its social Trading Platform .
Ayondo said earlier this year that due to logistics and delays caused by the COVID-19 virus, it applied to the Singapore bourse to postpone holding its annual general meeting. The troubled firm also seeks to push back the deadline for filing its financial reports.
On its rationale for the deadline extension, Ayondo said that preparing the statutory audit of the financial statements has been greatly affected after the Singapore government announced a circuit breaker.
