Citic Envirotech's free float falls below 10% threshold

THE Singapore Exchange (SGX) will suspend trading of shares in catalist-listed Citic Envirotech from 9am on Jan 13, after the company's free float fell under the 10 per cent mark on Friday 5.30pm, it announced in a bourse filing on Saturday.

The company's majority owner, Citic Group Corp's Citic Environment Investment Group, recently made a formal exit offer for the environmental engineering firm at S$ 0.55 per share. This brought the total number of shares owned, controlled or agreed to be acquired by the offeror to about 2.2 billion shares on Friday, representing about 90.54 per cent of the company.

With no intention to restore the free float requirement for the company, the board will announce the date on which the company's shares will be delisted from the SGX in due course, it said in a release.

The company will also not extend its exit offer deadline, at 5.30pm on Jan 17. This unconditional exit offer stands at a premium of 68.5 per cent over the counter's three-month volume-weighted average price of S$0.326, the company said in a filing on Jan 7.

Shareholders who have validly accepted the exit offer can expect to receive payment within seven business days from the date of receipt.

The counter closed at 55 Singapore cents on Friday, up 0.92 per cent.