Zalman’s Future May Not Be That Bleak After All

It appears that Moneaul’s multi-million dollar fraud will not be driving Zalman to bankruptcy after all. Word comes that the Korean courthouse handling the case has decided that Zalman, which was a child company of Moneaul, was not involved in the fraud and holds no responsibility for the actions of the parent company. We should remind you that Moneaul instigated a major financial scandal in Korea, implicating many major banks and causing a direct financial damage of nearly 3.2 Trillion Korean Won (about three billion US dollars).

The Korean courthouse decided that Zalman should be severed from Moneaul and continue to operate under their oversight and jurisdiction. As a result Zalman has been allowed to restructure the company, doing so under the supervision of the Korean justice system.

What does that mean for Zalman’s customers? Zalman will not need to file for bankruptcy nor liquefy any of their assets. The company will continue to operate normally and all post-purchase support and warranties remain valid. In some ways the company hasn’t even skipped a beat, recently announcing the release of a new product, the Z11 Neo case.

With that said, Zalman may not be out of the woods just yet. The company was hit very hard by this scandal, causing their stock to essentially be destroyed and pulled from trading. We are unaware of the company’s current capital, but rumors indicate that Moneaul might have spent a very large portion of it already, and Zalman will certainly consume some more until they get back on their own two feet. Finally, the company now operates under courthouse supervision for the time being.

Nevertheless, there is a light at the end of the tunnel for Zalman after all, and we are hopeful that the experience and hard work of the honest employees will help them reach it.  

Cooler Master V1200 Platinum Power Supply Review

Cooler Master is one of the oldest and most reputable companies that offer advanced cooling and power solutions. If you are a PC techie, chances are you’ve owned at least one of their products in the past. Today we are going to look at their current flagship PSU, the V1200 Platinum, and see how it fares in today’s demanding market.

Corporate Fraud Drives Zalman to Bankruptcy

This month is not starting very well for technology enthusiasts. Most of us have fond memories of Zalman, a company that has been producing advanced cooling solutions since 1999. Some are old enough to remember the fan-like CNPS6000 Socket 370 coolers and the first Reserator liquid cooling kits. Zalman was one of the pioneers of low-noise cooling solutions, in an era when stock coolers were noisy enough to drive people insane. Unfortunately for us all, on November 3, 2014 the company filed a bankruptcy protection request in the Seoul Central District Court.

Zalman did not fall victim to recession, competition or even bad corporate management. The whole story is long, complicated, obscure and yet unconfirmed, so unfortunately we may never learn all the details of it. To summarize, Zalman apparently was part of an allegedly very well designed and planned multi-billion dollar corporate fraud.

Zalman is a child company of the robotics manufacturer Moneual. According to The Korea Times, Moneual failed to repay their (massive) export bonds that matured on October 20, 2014, and ultimately filed for bankruptcy. Ever since that incident, Zalman’s stock price also began a quick downfall. However, the numbers just do not add up – Moneual has been repeatedly reporting major profits, with their 2013 annual report being nearly 1.2 billion dollars in sales and over 100 million dollars in profit. The local authorities naturally became very suspicious and initiated investigations, the preliminary reports of which indicate that there is evidence of a well-designed corporate fraud.

Long story short, Moneual allegedly acquired Zalman in 2011 as part of their master plan. They forged Zalman’s export and accounting documents, greatly overstating their export and income reports, in order to become eligible for huge bank loans. What is even more interesting is an article posted by the Korea JoongAng Daily, where an employee claims that most of the employees knew that the company was a sham but, despite the unearthly profit reports of the past few years, no government officials raised an eyebrow.

During that time, Moneual received about 620 million dollars in loans from several Korean banks and another 275 million dollars as export credit from the Korea Trade Insurance Corp, making the owners of Moneual richer by nearly 900 million dollars, money that will likely never be repaid. They have been arrested and, alongside many top- and mid-level executives of the company, are now facing prison time. Unfortunately, the architects of this fraud may not receive what punishment they deserve; the CEO of Moneual has U.S. citizenship and his brother has Canadian, and there’s some concerns that Korean law could face trouble prosecuting them.

Unfortunately, we have little confirmed information on the matter but, from the looks of it, no one from Zalman was involved in this fraud. Depending on the court’s decision, there is the possibility that Zalman will be granted bankruptcy protection and severed from Moneual’s control. However, even if that happens, Zalman will certainly not have the capabilities they used to and will most certainly struggle to compete on a global scale.