Chip Eng Seng chairman Celine Tang makes S$0.72 per share cash offer to privatise company 

CHIP Eng Seng’ : C29 0%s chairman Celine Tang and her husband Gordon Tang have together tabled a voluntary conditional cash offer to acquire all issued ordinary shares in the property player at a price tag of S$0.72 apiece, with the end goal of privatising and delisting the company from the Singapore Exchange (SGX) should they attain more than 90 per cent of shares.

The offeror is Tang Dynasty Treasure – an investment holding company owned by the Tang couple who also recently privatised SingHaiyi Group at a significant discount to its net asset value. SingHaiyi was delisted from SGX on Jan 31. 

In a press release on Thursday (Nov 24) evening, Chip Eng Seng said this consideration represents a year-to-date return of some 80.5 per cent, and a premium of about 36.9 per cent over the volume weighted average price (VWAP) for the company’s shares for the 12-month period prior to and including the holding announcement date of Sep 7. 

The premiums of the consideration over the VWAP for the one-month, three-month and six-month period stands at 8.6 per cent, 21.4 per cent and 28.3 per cent respectively, the company said. 

However, the offer translates to a discount of 27.3 per cent when compared to Chip Eng Seng’s group net asset value of S$0.9906 as at Jun 30.

The Tang couple jointly own just shy of 290.7 million shares of Chip Eng Seng. Gordon Tang also personally owns 9.1 million shares. This means the duo own about 38.23 per cent of Chip Eng Seng’s total shares.

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Senz Holdings, a company owned by Gordon Tang’s mother Yang Chanzhen and the Tang couple’s son Tang Jialin, holds a 3.22 per cent stake in Chip Eng Seng. 

Chip Eng Seng said the offer gives shareholders an opportunity to realise their investments “at a premium without incurring brokerage frees”. 

The offeror also said the move will “strengthen competitiveness and optimise resources”. It noted that SingHaiyi and Chip Eng Seng had entered into “numerous joint ventures” to leverage on the collective experience and expertise to deliver superior products to consumers. 

“Due to rising interest and inflation rates, the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic as well as geopolitical tensions ensuing from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, property developers in Singapore are operating in a challenging environment,” the offer documents said. 

“On the back of the macro headwinds, the offeror believes that this offer will provide the offeror with greater control to manage the overall business, optimise and streamline the resources to improve operational efficiency and effectiveness.”

The offeror has appointed UOB as its sole financial adviser. 

Shares of Chip Eng Seng closed flat at S$0.725 on Thursday prior to the announcement.