This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on March 16, 2026 - March 22, 2026

ABOUT five years after Serba Dinamik Holdings Bhd came under the spotlight for the falsification of its accounts, its CEO and managing director Datuk Mohd Abdul Karim Abdullah has once again been thrust into the limelight.

This time, however, a warrant of arrest has been issued against him over alleged wrongdoing at Sarawak Consolidated Industries Bhd (KL:SCIB), a manufacturer of precast concrete products.

Last Thursday, the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) obtained consent from the public prosecutor to proceed with criminal prosecution under securities laws, leading to the issuance of the arrest warrant.

Abdul Karim, currently at large, is wanted for an offence under Section 369(b)(B) of the Capital Markets and Services Act 2007 (CMSA). The charge is related to his alleged involvement in causing SCIB to submit a false statement to Bursa Malaysia. Abdul Karim previously served as SCIB’s chairman and was a non-independent, non-executive director.

On the same day, the SC also charged former SCIB managing director and CEO Rosland Othman in the Sessions Court with furnishing false statements in SCIB’s interim financial report for the quarter ended June 30, 2021. The SC asserts that the offence was committed at Bursa Malaysia Securities Bhd, Exchange Square, Bukit Kewangan, on Sept 30, 2021.

Both charges fall under Section 369(b)(B) of the CMSA, and carry a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment and fines of up to RM3 million upon conviction.

Abdul Karim emerged as the largest shareholder of SCIB in May 2019, when he acquired a 22.53% stake in the company at 70 sen apiece or RM13.54 million. In August that year, the Sarawak businessman triggered a mandatory general offer after raising his stake in the company to 42.84% following the acquisition of a 20.31% block of SCIB shares from several shareholders for RM19.19 million.

By September 2019, his 50.49% stake in the company gave him control of the company and he subsequently replaced Tan Sri Hamid Bugo, a former substantial shareholder, as company chairman. Hamid and his son Rewi exited the company after selling their entire shareholding to Abdul Karim.

However, in November 2022, SCIB’s external auditor expressed a qualified opinion over the group’s financial statement for the year ended June 30, 2022 (FY2022), pertaining to a settlement agreement related to six construction projects carried out in Qatar and Oman.

According to the auditor’s report, because of the lack of sufficient audit evidence of the transactions, Nexia SSY PLT was unable to determine the “accuracy, existence and completeness” of the group and company’s receivables due from the foreign project owners as at July 1, 2021, amounting to RM60.67 million and RM11.86 million respectively.

The qualified opinion raised by SCIB’s external auditor also came at a time when Abdul Karim faced charges in 2021 related to financial statements of Serba Dinamik. The report came after SCIB appointed Nexia as its new external auditor in August 2021 following the departure of KPMG PLT a month earlier.

KPMG’s departure came at a time when the auditor was embroiled in a dispute with Serba Dinamik — it was also the external auditor of the company — after highlighting in May 2021 that there were audit issues in Serba Dinamik’s accounts involving transactions of more than RM3.5 billion.

In November 2021, the trading of SCIB shares was suspended by Bursa Malaysia after the company failed to receive an extension to submit its FY2021 annual report.

Abdul Karim stepped down as chairman in October 2022 and retired from the group’s board in December that year, while Rosland left the group in June 2023. In July 2023, Abdul Karim ceased to be a shareholder of SCIB following the forced sale of his 139.67 million shares, representing a 24% stake.

Interestingly, a month earlier, SCIB said Abdul Karim’s name was not found in the record of depositors. Also, Bursa Malaysia’s latest update on his shareholding was on Dec 8, 2022.

At around the same time in June, SCIB appointed Abang Abdillah Izzarim Abang Abdul Rahman Zohari as its executive chairman, amid a slew of boardroom changes in the company. Abang Abdillah is the son of Sarawak Premier Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg. However, Abang Abdillah stepped down just six months later.

It was only in December 2023 that Bursa Malaysia publicly reprimanded Abdul Karim and Rosland for failing to issue the company’s FY2021 annual report within the stipulated time frame. They were fined RM27,000 each.

SCIB’s share price closed at 12 sen last Friday, which values the group at RM84.78 million — a far cry from its peak of RM2.67 per share in January 2021. The company has reported losses since 2021.

To market observers, last week’s events must have smacked of déjà vu.

Abdul Karim faced similar charges in 2021 related to the financial statements of Serba Dinamik, the oil and gas services company he once managed. In that case, the SC alleged that Serba Dinamik’s top executives had submitted false statements involving RM6.01 billion in revenue for FY2020, which were flagged by its external auditor KPMG.

However, following a probe, the SC in April 2022 elected to only compound the offences, to the surprise of many who had expected more stringent penalties. Abdul Karim, along with executive director Datuk Syed Nazim Syed Faisal, group chief financial officer Azhan Azmi and vice-president of accounts and finance Muhammad Hafiz Othman paid a total of RM16 million in fines. They were later discharged and acquitted by the Sessions Court.

Prior to the fiasco, Serba Dinamik was a popular O&G counter. However, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, and many O&G companies were stranded in the economic standstill, Serba Dinamik announced major job wins in the Middle East and issued debt paper running into the billions of ringgit.

But it all came crashing down in mid-2021 after KPMG raised concerns about financial irregularities and questionable revenue figures, which the company strenuously disputed, before terminating the auditor’s services. These developments escalated regulatory and investor scrutiny.

KPMG subsequently resigned as Serba Dinamik’s auditor in June 2021 after the latter filed a court action against it. The auditor said the suit had compromised its ability to independently continue to audit Serba Dinamik and discharge its professional duties.

Initially, the key officials of Serba Dinamik were charged with criminal offences for furnishing false financial information to Bursa. However, the Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC) converted the criminal charges into a compound that allowed those officials to only pay a fine.

Then minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (parliament and law) Datuk Seri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said the AGC’s decision to drop the charges against Serba Dinamik and four of its executives was on the basis that punitive action could be taken immediately (rather than having the case dragged out indefinitely).

After the episode, several top officials at the SC resigned. They included SC chairman Datuk Syed Zaid Albar, who stepped down in April 2022, just six months after his term was extended for a three-year period.

Soon after, SC managing director Foo Lee Mei, executive director and general counsel Chee Fei Meng, and executive director of digital strategy and innovation Chin Wei Min also resigned.

The Serba Dinamik case was also noteworthy in that the company took legal action against Bursa in November 2021 on the grounds that the regulator had acted in excess of its power in requiring the undertaking of a special independent review of the impugned transactions and the disclosure of the findings.

In February 2022, the High Court dismissed the case, prompting Serba Dinamik to file an appeal. It eventually withdrew its appeal at the end of 2022.

In 2023, Bursa reprimanded Serba Dinamik and of its 10 directors for violating market listing requirements, citing “serious dereliction of duties” resulting in corporate governance failures, particularly in ensuring proper and timely disclosure of material information and compliance with regulatory directives.

According to Bursa filings, Abdul Karim held 14.52% of Serba Dinamik before the delisting of the stock in June 2024 after the stock exchange rejected the company’s final appeal. His block of shares was valued at RM10.77 million.

The delisting came 18 months after Serba Dinamik shares were suspended from trading in January 2023. At the time, the shares were trading at two sen apiece.

At its peak, Serba Dinamik’s share price was at RM2.50 (adjusted post-bonus issue), giving it a market capitalisation of RM6 billion in early 2023. 

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