Japfa surges 16% to S$0.615 after news of S$0.62 privatisation offer

SHARES of agri-food company Japfa soared on Monday (Jan 27) after news broke last Friday that family members of its founder have offered to take the company private at an offer price of S$0.62 apiece. 

It soared S$0.085 or 16 per cent to S$0.615 after the market opened, above its previous closing price of S$0.53 on Friday. 

It later eased to S$0.61 at 9.39 am, 15.1 per cent or S$0.08 above Friday’s closing price, with 3.1 million shares changing hands. 

On Friday, Japfa announced in a bourse filing that Renaldo and Gabriella Santosa, as well as Rachel Anastasia Kolonas, were making a joint offer to acquire around 18.3 per cent of the company’s total issued shares. 

The two Santosas, who are siblings, are children of the late Handojo Santosa – Japfa’s former executive chairman and son of the company’s founder, the late Ferry Teguh Santosa. Kolonas is the daughter of Japfa’s non-executive director Hendrick Kolonas, who is the uncle of the two Santosa siblings. 

The company said the offer presents an opportunity for shareholders to realise their investments at a premium to prevailing market prices, which might otherwise be unlikely given the shares’ “low trading liquidity”. 

It added that the move is set to give the offerors and the company’s management greater flexibility to manage and grow the existing business by allowing the company to pursue “longer-term business strategies” that could “otherwise contrast or conflict with the shorter-term expectations of the public market”.  

As at 9.59am, shares of Japfa were trading up 16 per cent or S$0.085 at S$0.615.