Hot stock: Olam surges 13% on Mitsubishi deal

SHARES of Olam International soared almost 13 per cent on Friday morning after Mitsubishi Corp agreed to buy a 20 per cent stake in the Singapore commodity trader.

At 09.12am, Olam was trading at around S$2.15 a share, up 24 Singapore cents, or 12.57 per cent. Volume was light, around one million shares.

Shortly after 1am on Friday, Olam said it would issue 332.7 million new shares for S$915 million to Mitsubishi, one of Japan's biggest trading houses. The Tokyo-based company is also acquiring an 8 per cent stake in the agriculture firm for S$615 million from Kewalram Chanrai Group, which is Olam's second-largest shareholder after Temasek Holdings.

Olam's management is currently having on Friday morning a briefing with analysts and the media.