Court sanctions Cuscaden takeover scheme; SPH's last day of trading on Apr 7

CUSCADEN Peak's bid to acquire Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) via a scheme of arrangement was sanctioned in court on Friday (Apr 1).

The last day of trading for SPH will be Apr 7, before the group's shares are suspended from 9 am the following day and subsequently delisted on May 13.

Shareholders of SPH will have up until 5 pm on Apr 26 to elect their preferred consideration option of either an all-cash offer of S$2.36, or S$2.40 per share comprising S$1.602 cash and 0.782 of an SPH Real Estate Investment Trust (Reit) unit through a distribution-in-specie by SPH.

Transfer books and the register of members of the company will be closed at 5 pm on Apr 11 to determine the entitlements of eligible shareholders in respect of the distribution-in-specie and the Cuscaden scheme.

The scheme court order will be lodged with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority of Singapore before the Cuscaden scheme is considered effective and binding.

Assuming that the scheme takes effect on Apr 28, shareholders can expect to receive payment from the consideration they have opted for by May 11.

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SPH has arranged with OCBC Securities, Philip Securities and UOB Kay Hian to facilitate odd lots trades from May 11 to Jun 22, 2022.

To recap, SPH shareholders voted in favour of the takeover offer from Cuscaden through a virtual scheme meeting on Mar 22.

Cuscaden is a consortium backed by Hotel Properties, businessman Ong Beng Seng and 2 Temasek-linked entities CLA and Mapletree.

About 89.2 per cent of 2,728 shareholders gave the green light for the takeover.

SPH and SPH Reit both called for trading halts on Thursday evening pending the release of the announcement. Prior to that, shares of SPH closed flat at S$2.35, while units of SPH Reit ended S$0.005 or 0.5 per cent lower at S$0.97.

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