Profit from Ho’s music projected to be S$34.6m

SINGAPORE — Beyonce, Shakira, Wyclef Jean and will.i.am. Some of the most recognisable names in the music world were thrown up in court yesterday, as plans for Ms Ho Yeow Sun’s foray into the United States pop music scene were revealed in the trial of six City Harvest Church leaders.

Ms Ho, also known as Sun Ho, was to work with Wyclef Jean and The Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am. A US marketer who believed she could “be huge” benchmarked her marketing budget against that of Columbian songstress Shakira’s supposed US$12 million (S$15.4 million) budget. It was more modest than Beyonce’s US$17 million budget, according to the marketer, Ms Lisa Ellis.

US producer Justin Herz told this to Kong Hee, who is Ms Ho’s husband, the church’s co-founder and one of the accused, in emails in May and June 2008.

The documents were tendered by Kong’s lawyer Edwin Tong in court when he cross-examined prosecution witness Choong Kar Weng.

Mr Choong is Director of Xtron Productions, which provided audio-visual services to City Harvest Church and managed Ms Ho’s career from 2003 to 2008.

Mr Tong was trying to show that projected album sales and profits from Ms Ho’s music career far exceeded the S$13 million in bonds that Xtron had to redeem from the church.

He was countering the prosecution, which contends that the bonds were sham and had earlier this week quoted an email by Serina Wee Gek Yin — Xtron’s accountant and another of the accused — which revealed expected album sales of 200,000 and revenue of S$2.17 million. This would be, in Wee’s words, “hardly enough to pay off the S$13 million”.

Mr Tong argued that the figure used by Wee could be only part of the total sales, given the “worst-case scenario” estimates of Ms Ellis and Mr Herz. According to a seven-year profit and loss projection by the latter, the total net profit from Ms Ho’s US career by next year would be nearly US$27 million (S$34.6 million).

The emails also showed Kong and another of the accused, former church board Vice-President Tan Ye Peng, concerned about the ballooning album expenses.

The latter was worried that the initial capital outlay of US$12.4 million and a longer capital recovery period for the project would make it “a hard sell to the XPL (Xtron) directors”, Kong wrote in an email to Mr Herz.

Three other defence lawyers cross-examined Mr Choong yesterday.

Senior Counsel Kannan Ramesh, lawyer for one of the accused, Sharon Tan Shao Yuen, countered the prosecution’s assertion that some losses from Ms Ho’s music career, also known as the Crossover Project, could be ultimately covered by church funds.

Mr Choong agreed with Mr Ramesh’s statement that loans taken by former Xtron Director Wahju Hanafi to fund the project’s expenses were “filled” by returns from AMAC Capital Partners, as well as the Multi-Purpose Fund, which consists of donations by individuals for Crossover and is separate from the church.

AMAC is an investment firm owned by former church member Chew Eng Han, another of the accused.

Asked by Senior Counsel Michael Khoo, Chew’s lawyer, if he ever felt Xtron’s bond transactions were sham, Mr Choong replied in the negative.

The defence continues to cross-examine Mr Choong today.