BOUSTEAD Singapore’s bid to acquire Boustead Projects at S$0.95 a share and delist it got a slight boost on Tuesday (Mar 14), despite the Securities Investors Association Singapore (Sias) urging shareholders to reject the offer the evening before.

Boustead Singapore said as at 6 pm on Tuesday, it has garnered 87.88 per cent of the total number of shares in its mainboard-listed real estate subsidiary.

This was more than 1 per cent higher than a day ago, when the total number of shares owned, controlled or agreed to be acquired by Boustead Singapore and its concert parties as well as valid acceptances of the offer stood at 86.82 per cent.

Sias on Monday said shareholders should reject the listed acquirer’s offer unless the offer price is raised to a “fair and reasonable” amount, pointing out that the appointed independent financial adviser (IFA) had assessed that the offer is “not fair but reasonable”.

In a bourse filing on Tuesday, Boustead Singapore noted that it managed to acquire more than 1.3 million shares in the day, which represent 0.42 per cent of the total number of issued shares. On Monday, it managed to acquire only 179,800 shares.

The level of acceptances of the offer, meanwhile, rose from 4.33 per cent to 4.96 per cent as at 6 pm, it pointed out.

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On Tuesday, shares of Boustead Singapore closed 2.3 per cent lower at S$0.84, while those of Boustead Projects closed flat at S$0.95.