SINGAPORE, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp, Singapore's third largest lender, said on Monday it has not decided whether to accept a buyout offer for commodity and property investment company Straits Trading.
Tecity Group -- an investment firm owned by several members of the family that have stakes in OCBC -- offered on Sunday to buy Straits Trading shares it did not already own for S$5.70 a share, valuing the company at S$1.86 billion ($1.30 billion).
"The bank will evaluate the terms of the offer carefully, and will in due course study the advice of the independent financial advisers to be appointed by Straits Trading," OCBC spokeswoman Koh Ching Ching said in a statement.
"We will explore all available options before making a decision," she added.
OCBC has direct and indirect interests totaling 26.1 percent of the shares in Straits Trading.
About 19.9 percent of the shares are held by Great Eastern Holdings, the bank's insurance arm.
OCBC values the 7.7 percent of Straits Trading that it holds directly at S$17.1 million, or about 66 Singapore cents a share, according to its latest annual report, which means the bank would net an eight-fold return or over S$130 million on this portion alone.
Shares of Straits Trading rose 14 percent to S$5.64 on Monday.
No comments:
Post a Comment