Hot stock: Second Chance up 40% on potential privatisation by founder’s family

SHARES of Second Chance Properties rose as much as 39.5 per cent at Thursday’s (Jul 11) open after the counter resumed trading, as investors digested the founder’s bid to take the company private.

On Wednesday, Mohamed Salleh, the founder and chief executive of Second Chance , and his family made a voluntary unconditional offer of S$0.30 per share in cash to take the group private.

Second Chance’s shares jumped 39.5 per cent or S$0.085 to the offer price of S$0.30 right when the market opened after a trading halt was lifted. By 9.36 am, the counter was trading 37.2 per cent or S$0.08 higher at S$0.295, with 346,600 shares changing hands.

The deal was made through Final Chance Holdings, a vehicle incorporated in connection with the offer.

The Salleh family’s offer represented a premium of about 39.5 per cent over Second Chance’s last traded price of S$0.215 on Jul 9, the last full trading day before the offer announcement. It is also at a slight 0.5 per cent discount to the group’s net asset value per share of S$0.3016 as at end-February.

Second Chance has four core businesses: property investment, apparel and gold jewellery retailing, and investment in financial instruments. It was listed on the Singapore Exchange’s mainboard in 2004.

The company called for two trading halts on Wednesday, once before the market opened and another after it released the announcement.