UOL Group Ltd (華業集團) and Haw Par Corp (虎豹企業), two listed companies largely owned by 88-year-old Singapore billionaire Wee Cho Yaw (黃祖耀), announced a deal that could make UOL one of the largest owners of commercial space in Singapore.
Property investor UOL is to sell 27.3 million new shares to Tiger Balm maker and investment holding firm Haw Par in exchange for 60 million United Industrial Corp (UIC, 聯合工業) shares owned by Haw Par’s wholly owned subsidiary, UOL said in a statement to the Singapore stock exchange.
On completion, UOL’s stake in United Industrial would increase from 44.71 percent to 48.94 percent, it said.
The deal “will offer greater diversification by increasing access to UIC’s commercial property portfolio in the Singapore Central Business District,” UOL said in the statement. “The proposed transaction will enable UOL and UIC to further align strategic interests and collaborate to acquire land banks, office and retail properties.”
UOL shares jumped as much as 5.5 percent in early Singapore trading and were up 0.9 percent at S$7.75 at 10:01am Singapore time.
United Industrial added 1.2 percent, while Haw Par fell 0.4 percent.
“UOL has assessed that it will exercise de facto control over UIC, as it will become the single-largest shareholder,” said Tata Goeyardi, a director at Religare Capital Markets in Singapore.
The group will consolidate UIC into its accounts and UOL has plans of achieving statutory control of UIC in the future, Goeyardi said.
Investor and hotel operator UOL owns the Pan Pacific and Parkroyal brands, while United Industrial has built high-end office and residential buildings in Singapore. United Industrial has been controlled by Wee and Philippine billionaire John Gokongwei, who is 90.
UOL has received a waiver from the Securities Industry Council of Singapore and is not obliged to make a mandatory general offer for UIC as a result of the share acquisition, on condition that UOL’s stake in UIC does not exceed 49 percent, the statement said.
The deal is subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals, with all conditions to be satisfied by Oct. 31.
With a net worth of about US$7.3 billion, Wee is Singapore’s second-richest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He famously turned a local lender, United Overseas Bank Ltd (大華銀行), into Southeast Asia’s third-biggest bank.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in server chips, expects revenue to decline this year due to sagging demand for 5-nanometer artificial intelligence (AI) chips from a North America-based major customer, a company executive said yesterday. That would be the first contraction in revenue for Alchip as it has been enjoying strong revenue growth over the past few years, benefiting from cloud-service providers’ moves to reduce dependence on Nvidia Corp’s expensive AI chips by building their own AI accelerator by outsourcing chip design. The 5-nanometer chip was supposed to be a new growth engine as the lifecycle
RSS