Axington shares rise after Dorr's cash offer, briefly push past offer price

SHARES in Catalist-listed Axington Inc, formerly known as Axcelasia, rose as high as 21.5 Singapore cents on Tuesday morning, above Dorr Global Healthcare International's offer price of 20.8 cents, on the back of increased volume.

On Monday, Dorr which provides management consultancy services for healthcare organisations, said it plans to make an unconditional cash offer for Axington.

Dorr is offering 20.8 cents in cash for each share, in a deal that values the company at S$33.3 million. The offer price is final and Dorr does not intend to revise the offer price, it said. The offer price represents a premium of 43.45 per cent to Axington's last traded price of 14.5 cents on May 26.

As at 11.30am on Tuesday, shares in Axington were trading at 21 cents, up 44.8 per cent or 6.5 cents, surpassing its 52-week high of 19 cents.

Some 110.2 million shares changed hands, making it the most active stock on the Singapore bourse in the early session of trading.

The bulk of the volume was driven by married trades, Shareinvestor data showed. There was also more trading than usual, with some trades done above the offer price, according to data from Bloomberg.

Axington had historically provided integrated professional services, mainly to companies in Malaysia. In April, Axington completed the sale of its core business in Malaysia to the Tricor Group in Hong Kong. As such, the Axington Group currently consists primarily of the company and subsidiaries in Singapore, Laos and Vietnam.