Stocks to watch: Noble, DeClout, Keppel Corp, China Jinjiang Environment

THE following companies saw new developments which may affect trading of their shares on Monday:

Noble Group: Noble Group has rejected substantial shareholder Goldilocks' attempt to nominate five non-executive directors at its upcoming annual general meeting (AGM) on April 30. This was on the basis that Goldilocks, an Abu Dhabi-based investment fund, is not a member of the company because it holds its shares through a depository agent, Noble said in a pre-market open local bourse filing on Monday. Noble said that Goldilocks' notice and request were not in accordance with the company's by-laws or the Bermuda law. On Monday, Goldilocks responded by saying that Noble has "threatened its standing as a shareholder" of the group, and that Noble's reasoning damages the standing of all shareholders.


DeClout: Melvin Poh has become the second-largest shareholder of Catalist-listed DeClout by buying over the entire 11.8 per cent stake of Wong Poh Leng for S$9.2 million. On April 17, Mr Poh acquired a total of 78.15 million shares in DeClout, a holding company for technology firms, from Ms Wong in an off-market transaction. The acquisition price of 11.8 Singapore cents per share represents a premium of 35.6 per cent over DeClout's closing price of 8.7 Singapore cents on Apr 13, being the last market day on which shares in DeClout were traded before the transaction, DeCout said on Monday morning in an exchange filing.


Keppel Corporation: Keppel Corporation is in talks with liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipping company Golar LNG on floating LNG (FLNG) projects for the Tortue field located offshore Mauritania and Senegal. Golar said on Thursday that it had struck a preliminary agreement with BP to provide a FLNG unit for the oil major's Greater Tortue/Ahmeyin project development. Of the four partners in the oilfield project, BP has the largest interest of about 60 per cent, and is the operator. Golar said that it has exchanged heads of terms for a charter agreement with BP, representing a commitment to translate key commercial terms into a full agreement and proceed with the front-end engineering design in providing a FLNG vessel. The agreement with BP also includes an option, but not an obligation, for a second FLNG vessel.


China Jinjiang Environment: Chinese waste-to-energy (WTE) operator China Jinjiang Environment has agreed to subscribe for a majority stake in a Brazilian WTE company as it also announced a 21 per cent drop in first-quarter earnings. The group's net profit for the first three months of 2018 fell to 100.85 million yuan (S$21 million), from 127.45 million yuan a year ago, as gross profit margins slumped due to a large-scale upgrading project for eight of its operational WTE facilities. Revenue rose 35 per cent to 754.87 million yuan, thanks to a jump in contribution from construction services provided under build-operate-transfer concession agreements. On Monday morning, the group said it will be issuing 214 million new shares to Harvest Environmental Investment Fund SP to raise some S$107 million. The issue price of S$0.50 represents a 5.78 per cent discount to the volume-weighted average price of S$0.5307 on Apr 20, being the full market day for trades done on shares of the company preceding the subscription agreement.

BT is now on Telegram!

For daily updates on weekdays and specially selected content for the weekend. Subscribe to t.me/BizTimes