{"id":63729,"date":"2026-06-25T22:12:01","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T14:12:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=63729"},"modified":"2026-06-25T22:12:01","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T14:12:01","slug":"kpa-engineering-showed-signs-of-financial-woes-in-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=63729","title":{"rendered":"KPA Engineering showed signs of financial woes in 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">SINGAPORE \u2013<!-- --> Embattled <a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/courts-crime\/number-of-workers-with-claims-of-unpaid-wages-linked-to-air-con-firm-climbs-to-400?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_blank\" data-testid=\"custom-link\"><span class=\"font-body-baseline-regular inline\" data-testid=\"paragraph-test-id\">air-conditioner servicing company KPA Engineering<\/span><\/a> had shown signs of financial difficulties as early as 2023, when HSBC registered a charge against the company over unpaid debts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">This was followed by DBS Bank, which separately filed two charges with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority\u00a0(ACRA) against the firm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">KPA Engineering, SK Industries and VVR Plant Engineering are three firms linked to an alleged migrant worker abandonment case which has seen more than 400 foreign nationals, primarily from India and Bangladesh, seeking help for housing arrangements and unpaid wages.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The Straits Times had earlier identified Indian national Ramu Palani Velu, a Singapore permanent resident, as the director of the three companies. He is also a director of four other firms, also in air-con, plumbing and building services.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Ramu is said to have left Singapore.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">A search of ACRA\u2019s records showed that HSBC had filed a charge against KPA Engineering in September 2023. This was removed after the debt was repaid.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">But in September 2024, DBS Bank registered two separate charges against the company to secure all monies.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"More than 100 workers show up at MOM claiming unpaid wages\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/S4HmLGCSsQE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">A charge is a<b>\u00a0<\/b>form of security interest\u00a0held by a lender or creditor to secure loan repayment from the borrower.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">If the borrower cannot repay a loan, the creditor can use the charge to claim the company\u2019s assets, which may include land, buildings, machinery, shares and intellectual property.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">A charge is filed with ACRA. It is removed from the business registry records via another filing to indicate it has been satisfied.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">This requires the debtor to pay off the debt fully or at least partially.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">In the case of KPA Engineering, the two DBS charges remain on the record, indicating it has not paid up since 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">A senior bank executive, who declined to be named, said that banks typically send a letter of demand and may follow up with a writ of summons when payments are overdue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">A charge may then be registered with ACRA before any winding-up action is taken.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">When a company is liquidated, assets are distributed to creditors which have filed fixed charges before the others, such as employees.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">There was no record of charges filed against the other companies linked to Ramu on ACRA\u2019s registry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Checks on corporate intelligence platform\u00a0Sayari showed that\u00a0Ramu had registered KPA Engineering in 2014. Krishnamurthy Sundaramoorthy, an Indian national, became a co-director of the firm in 2020.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">SK Industries was registered in 2023, while VVR Plant Engineering, formerly called VMD Integrated, registered Ramu as director in 2025 when he bought over the company from a family here.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">More than 400 workers from the three firms are being helped by the Ministry of Manpower, the Migrant Workers\u2019 Centre and the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The agencies, as well as tripartite partners, are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/community\/40-firms-offer-jobs-to-about-400-workers-affected-by-unpaid-salaries-linked-to-air-con-company?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_blank\" data-testid=\"custom-link\"><span class=\"font-body-baseline-regular inline\" data-testid=\"paragraph-test-id\">helping the workers with job placements, housing arrangements and finding resolution for their wage issues<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">ST has contacted DBS about the charges filed against KPA Engineering.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The firm is facing a possible traffic offence charge, with the case to be heard in court on July 8.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-list-container\" data-testid=\"bulleted-article-list-test-id\">\n<ul class=\"pl-22 list-disc article-list-wrapper\">\n<li class=\"article-list-item list-item\" data-testid=\"bulleted-article-list-item-test-id\">\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Additional reporting by Emerald Lo<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/courts-crime\/unpaid-workers-kpa-engineering-showed-signs-of-financial-troubles-from-2023-still-owes-dbs-money\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SINGAPORE \u2013 Embattled air-conditioner servicing company KPA Engineering had shown signs of financial difficulties as early as 2023, when HSBC registered a charge against the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/63730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}