Keppel shareholders vote overwhelmingly for Sembmarine, Keppel O&M’s mega merger

KEPPEL Corporation’s shareholders voted overwhelmingly for the merger of its offshore and marine (O&M) unit with Sembcorp Marine (Sembmarine), with 99.96 per cent of votes cast for the proposal.

This translates to 562.8 million votes, Keppel : BN4 0% said in a bourse filing after an extraordinary general meeting on Thursday (Dec 8) held to put the proposal to a vote.

Against votes amounted to 214,126, or 0.04 per cent of the votes cast.

Temasek Holdings, which holds some 371.4 million Keppel shares, abstained from voting.

99.96 per cent of votes, translating to about 562.3 million shares, were also cast in favour of a second resolution, which is for Keppel to make the distribution in specie of Sembcorp Marine’s shares at a time and date to be determined by Keppel’s directors.

The long-anticipated merger of the two O&M giants was first announced in April 2022 with plans to carry out separate schemes of arrangement that will result in Keppel O&M and Sembmarine : S51 0% becoming wholly-owned subsidiaries of the combined entity.

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Terms of this deal were revised in October such that Sembmarine would directly acquire Keppel O&M from Keppel Corp at the revised equity-value exchange ratio of 46:54, as compared with the earlier 44:56 (Sembmarine:Keppel O&M).

A Keppel spokesperson said: “We would like to thank Keppel’s shareholders for their strong support of the Keppel Offshore & Marine combination and the asset co-transfer, as well as the distribution of sembcorp marine shares. With the successful conclusion of Keppel’s Extraordinary General Meeting, we have received all the required shareholder and regulatory approvals on Keppel’s part.”

Keppel shares ended Thursday up 0.5 per cent or S$0.04 at S$7.47. Sembmarine shares ended the day flat at S$0.142.