Businessman Mark Wee makes offer for Blumont at 80% discount

BUSINESSMAN Mark Wee Liang Yee has triggered a mandatory unconditional cash offer to buy out Blumont Group after acquiring from Ultimate Horizon a 50.8 per cent stake in the company.

The transaction was done through the purchase of some 14 billion shares at S$0.0004 each. As a result, it is making a similar offer for the shares it does not already own at the same price.

But unlike most offers which are at premiums to the prevailing trading prices, Mr Wee's offer carries an approximately 80 per cent discount to Blumont's share price, whether for the one-, three- or six-month period leading up to its last trading day before the offer.

So far, Ultimate Horizon has undertaken to reject the offer for its remaining 29.5 per cent stake in the firm.

Ultimate Horizon is owned by Malaysian businessman and non-executive chairman of Blumont, Siaw Lu Howe. It had in August 2017 launched a mandatory takeover of the company at 0.0182 Singapore cent apiece, but failed to amass sufficient acceptances to push the deal through.

Mr Wee has been managing companies involved in the development of commercial projects as well as numbers forecast operations in Sarawak since the early 1980s.

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He is currently the executive chairman and major shareholder of WHT Capital, an investment management and holding company, in Malaysia, and the executive deputy chairman and CEO of Bursa-listed hospitality firm Landmarks Berhad.

Mr Wee said that he intends to review Blumont's business to identify areas in which its strategic direction and operations can be enhanced, which may involve the disposal or cessation of underperforming businesses and assets, the purchase of new assets and the redeployment of certain employees in the future. He also intends to keep the company listed.

Blumont was one of the companies implicated in the 2013 penny stock collapse. Its latest annual report listed its business as investment holding, sterilisation and polymerisation services and property development.

Two weeks ago, its CEO Lee Tak Meng said that he had resigned. Mr Lee was appointed CEO only in April last year, and is said to be leaving to pursue other growth opportunities. His last day with the company is Nov 30.

Blumont's shares closed at S$0.002 on Monday.

UOB Kay Hian is the financial adviser to the offeror.