KUALA LUMPUR (May 25): Serba Dinamik Holdings Bhd group managing director (MD) and group chief executive officer Datuk Dr Mohd Abdul Karim Abdullah has been forced to sell more shares — this round involving 16.99 million shares representing a 0.458% stake — in the troubled oil and gas outfit.

The forced disposal of the shares was done in two blocks of 3.54 million and 13.45 million shares on Monday (May 23) and Tuesday (May 24) respectively, the company's bourse filings showed.

The first block crossed at 12 sen apiece, while the second larger block was let go at 10.5 sen apiece. The transactions amounted to RM1.84 million.

This latest round of forced selling has trimmed his stake in Serba Dinamik to 20.368% or 755.57 million shares.

Prior to that, Mohd Abdul Karim held 772.57 million shares or 20.826% in Serba Dinamik — after he was forced to sell 5.15 million shares or 0.139% — at 15 sen a share on May 20.

With the latest disposal, Mohd Abdul Karim has been forced to let go of a total of 266.99 million shares, since he was first forced to sell his stake in the group on June 28 last year.

Mohd Abdul Karim, together with Serba Dinamik and three other executives were previously charged by the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) under Section 369(a)(B) of the Capital Markets and Services Act for submitting a false statement involving revenue of RM6.01 billion for its financial period ended Dec 31, 2020.

However, charges against the accused were dropped two weeks ago after they paid RM16 million total in compounds issued by the SC, following the Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC) decision to accept their representations.

Serba Dinamik’s troubles began a year ago when its former external auditor KPMG flagged audit discrepancies in regard to its financials. Prior to that, Serba Dinamik's counter was trading at RM1.61.

On Wednesday, Serba Dinamik shares closed unchanged at 10 sen, giving the group a market capitalisation of RM372.72 million.