by NUR HAZIQAH A MALEK / pic by TMR FILE

SERBA Dinamik Holdings Bhd’s share price jumped 25.97% or 10 sen to 48.5 sen yesterday following the recent official appointment of Ernst & Young Consulting Sdn Bhd (EY) as an independent reviewer to its audit.

The integrated engineering service provider moved steadily higher yesterday, hitting an intraday high of 51.5 sen before some profit-taking saw the price settle lower with some 1.49 billion shares traded.

With institutional selling pressure weakening, Serba Dinamik’s share price come off its lows of 39.5 sen but well below its high of RM1.61 on May 25, when the accounting issues flagged by its then external auditor KPMG PLT broke, thus sending the stock down and erased more than RM3 billion in market value.

Its exchange filing yesterday noted its MD and CEO Datuk Dr Mohd Abdul Karim Abdullah continued to trip his stake as his shares and warrants were forced sold.

He had been forced to liquidate over 32 million shares and eight million warrants between June 30 and July 1.

Last Friday, Serba Dinamik formalised EY’s appointment as the special independent reviewer, citing the organisation’s reputation as one of the Big Four auditing firms.

It added the scope of works of the special independent review has been reviewed and approved by Bursa Malaysia Securities Bhd.

EY was appointed after KPMG resigned following the legal action taken against the latter by Serba Dinamik over the whole issue.

The Malaysian Reserve (TMR) had reported yesterday that Mohd Abdul Karim was confident of winning the legal case against KPMG.

“We have taken legal action to disentangle the differences in terms of opinion between the management and the external auditor,” he told TMR in a recent interview.

He said if the company did not have very solid reasoning, based on its counsel’s explanation, it would not have taken the legal recourse.

The move was taken “to defend our right, to defend what we believe needs to be done for the betterment of shareholders and stakeholders”, he said.

He said the situation around the audit matters was the biggest challenge faced by the company.

The co-founder also expressed faith in the company’s survival through the crisis, amid the challenging business environment brought on by the pandemic.