A rare auction for a listed Singaporean company opened yesterday with Thai and Indonesian tycoons facing off to take over diversified conglomerate Fraser and Neave Ltd (F&N).
The auction was called by a stock market watchdog to resolve a protracted battle for F&N after it sold off its most prized asset, Tiger Beer maker Asia Pacific Breweries, to Dutch giant Heineken in September last year.
At stake are F&N’s property, beverages and publishing operations.
A spokesman for the Securities Industry Council (SIC), which called for the auction, said the process officially opened yesterday after Thai billionaire Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi made a fresh pre-auction bid over the weekend.
Charoen’s TCC Assets on Saturday said it was increasing its offer for F&N shares it does not own from S$8.88 a share to S$9.55.
The total S$13.75 billion (US$11.18 billion) offer trumped the S$13.1 billion, or S$9.08 per share, bid tabled by property firm Overseas Union Enterprise Ltd (OUE) in November last year, but it was still lower than F&N’s closing price last week.
The stock surged 1.25 percent, or S$0.12, to S$9.70 yesterday.
The revised bid leaves “the Thais in the driving seat this morning,” IG Markets said in a report.
“The drawn-out sparring match for the prized asset of Fraser & Neave has reached the final round with the Thais delivering what could be the knockout punch,” the report added.
OUE is controlled by Indonesia’s Lippo Group, whose founder is Indonesian tycoon Mochtar Riady. His son Stephen is OUE’s executive chairman.
Under the auction rules set by SIC, a daily bidding process will take place from yesterday until one party gives up.
F&N shareholders had reacted coolly to the original bids after an adviser gave a much higher valuation than those tabled by TCC Assets and OUE.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said its materials management head, Vanessa Lee (李文如), had tendered her resignation for personal reasons. The personnel adjustment takes effect tomorrow, TSMC said in a statement. The latest development came one month after Lee reportedly took leave from the middle of last month. Cliff Hou (侯永清), senior vice president and deputy cochief operating officer, is to concurrently take on the role of head of the materials management division, which has been under his supervision, TSMC said. Lee, who joined TSMC in 2022, was appointed senior director of materials management and
Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登精密), the sole extreme ultraviolet pod supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), yesterday said it has trimmed its revenue growth target for this year as US tariffs are likely to depress customer demand and weigh on the whole supply chain. Gudeng’s remarks came after the US on Monday notified 14 countries, including Japan and South Korea, of new tariff rates that are set to take effect on Aug. 1. Taiwan is still negotiating for a rate lower than the 32 percent “reciprocal” tariffs announced by the US in April, which it later postponed to today. The
MAJOR CONTRIBUTOR: Revenue from AI servers made up more than 50 percent of Wistron’s total server revenue in the second quarter, the company said Wistron Corp (緯創) on Tuesday reported a 135.6 percent year-on-year surge in revenue for last month, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, with the momentum expected to extend into the third quarter. Revenue last month reached NT$209.18 billion (US$7.2 billion), a record high for June, bringing second-quarter revenue to NT$551.29 billion, a 129.47 percent annual increase, the company said. Revenue in the first half of the year totaled NT$897.77 billion, up 87.36 percent from a year earlier and also a record high for the period, it said. The company remains cautiously optimistic about AI server shipments in the third quarter,
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Thursday met with US President Donald Trump at the White House, days before a planned trip to China by the head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, people familiar with the matter said. Details of what the two men discussed were not immediately available, and the people familiar with the meeting declined to elaborate on the agenda. Spokespeople for the White House had no immediate comment. Nvidia declined to comment. Nvidia’s CEO has been vocal about the need for US companies to access the world’s largest semiconductor market and is a frequent visitor to China.
RSS