Looking for a place to park $63m cash

ALMOST two years after selling its regional chocolate retail line for a pretty penny, mainboard-listed ABR Holdings, which runs the profitable Swensen's franchise of ice-cream restaurants here, is still hunting for a suitable place to park a sizeable cash stash.

The group last reported cash and equivalents of $63.5 million on its balance sheet - no mean feat for a company flying under the radar and worth around $150 million on the market.

"The reality of finding food opportunities of that size is that there are not many options. So we have been looking beyond the food and beverage sector," executive chairman Keith Chua, 60, told The Business Times in an interview.