UOL announces mandatory offer for remaining shares in SingLand

UOL Group Limited announced a mandatory unconditional cash offer for all the shares in Singapore Land (SingLand) that it does not already own at S$11.85 apiece in cash.

The obligation for UOL to make a mandatory offer for Singapore Land, which United Industrial Corporation (UIC) now owns 99.683 per cent, was triggered under Singapore's takeover code after UOL's stake in UIC crossed 50 per cent.

UOL said that it has, through its wholly owned subsidiary UOL Equity Investments Pte Ltd, bought 730,978 UIC shares in a series of on-market and off-market acquisitions on Tuesday at an average S$3.30875 per share.

Out of these UIC shares acquired on Tuesday, 305,878 UIC shares were purchased from a party acting in concert with UOL Equity Investments while the balance of the 425,100 UIC shares was acquired from the open market.

As a result of the acquisitions, the aggregate interest in UIC owned by UOL and its concert parties has risen to some 716.39 million shares, representing 50.025 per cent of the total number of UIC shares.

UOL has thereby attained statutory control of UIC under the Singapore Code on Takeovers and Mergers. With statutory control of UIC, UOL has also attained effective control of SingLand.

SingLand was delisted from the main board of Singapore Exchange on Aug 25, 2014. Under the 2014 privatisation offer, the base offer price for each SingLand share was S$9.40 in cash. The current offer price of S$11.85 per share thus represents a premium of 26.1 per cent to the 2014 offer price.

This current offer price is also a premium to the aggregate distribution of S$9.40 per share under SingLand's 2016 capital reduction and cash distribution.

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