Asiasons' all-share offer prices target at its current $32.3m market value
By JAMIE LEE
 | Email this article |
 | Print article |
 | Feedback |
ASIASONS Capital, formerly known as Integra2000, has unveiled plans to take over Westcomb Financial Group through an all-share offer, pricing the target company at exactly its current market value of $32.3 million.
The offeror - which owns 24.72 per cent of the company - said yesterday that it intends to acquire the remaining shares that it does not already own at 18 cents apiece, which is also the price that Westcomb shares closed at yesterday.
This will be paid through a share issue of Asiasons Capital at 14 cents per share, working out to 1.2857 Asiasons shares for each Westcomb share. Asiasons, whose stock last traded also at 14 cents, plans to make the pre-conditional voluntary offer through wholly owned Asiasons Investment.
Asiasons expects to issue up to about 173.8 million new Asiasons shares, representing 16.7 per cent of its enlarged issue share capital.
Asiasons had earlier gone under the knife to transform its business from an IT company into an asset investment firm. The Catalist-listed company said that Westcomb was a 'strategic fit' that would allow the latter to tap on Asiasons' regional network in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and parts of China to broker deals and secure funding.
'(Asiasons) will also be able to tap onto the (Westcomb)'s expertise in corporate finance and research to enhance their private equity investment capabilities,' the company said.
Asiasons said that it plans to 'preserve the listing status' of Westcomb and would retain the management team, adding that it has no intention to introduce major business changes.
Shares of thinly traded Westcomb have fallen 28 per cent since the start of this year, compared with a near 50 per cent slump in the Straits Times Index.
The stock trades at a price-to-book (P/B) ratio of 0.81 times, which is higher than the two bigger brokering players, Kim Eng Holdings and UOB-Kay Hian.
Kim Eng trades at 0.63 times its P/B, while Singapore's largest brokerage UOB-Kay Hian trades at 0.74 times, Reuters data showed.
Westcomb, which was listed in 2004, was once the king of the initial public offering (IPO) markets, but took a hit in credibility after regulators served a temporary ban to issue IPOs.
In late 2005, the Singapore Exchange had stopped the company from issuing new IPOs for three months and called for the company to improve their levels of due diligence.
This was said to follow some concerns over the performance of the IPOs that it brought in, some of which issued profit warnings soon after they went public.
From early 2007, the brokerage also spent more than a year fighting, and eventually winning a lawsuit against a former remisier. The latter claimed that the firm had tried to poach clients and denied him of his commission.
Westcomb told BT this year that it was planning to raise a new fund of $50-$100 million with its partners, as part of its effort to diversify into the private equity business.
No comments:
Post a Comment