BlackRock clarifies it has accepted Keppel Corp's offer

BLACKROCK on Tuesday clarified in a filing to the Singapore Exchange that its sale of 37,333,850 Keppel Land shares on March 26 (which it disclosed a day later on March 27) "represents BlackRock's acceptance of the offer".

BT had earlier reported that market watchers believed BlackRock's sale of the 37.3 million Keppel Land shares at S$4.38 to be its tendering of its acceptances, despite some slight discrepancy in the numbers when tallied.

BlackRock no longer holds any shares in Keppel Land. It has had to make these dealings disclosures because it owns about 5 per cent of Keppel Corp and hence is considerd an associate of Keppel Corp.

Keppel Corp is making an offer for all the shares of Keppel Land that it does not already own.

As at 5pm on Monday, Keppel Corp owned 93.9 per cent of Keppel Land.

The final closing deadline of the offer is 5.30pm on March 31.

If Keppel Corp fails to reach the 95.5 per cent compulsory acquisition threshold target, it will be offering a lower price of S$4.38 per Keppel Land share, rather than the higher price of S$4.60 a piece.

At 4.06pm, Keppel Land was trading flat at S$4.46.