Olam's founding group Kewalram raises stake in firm for first time in 5 years

OLAM International's founding group Kewalram Singapore has raised its stake in the agri-commodity trader for the first time since 2012.

In an exchange filing on Tuesday, Olam said that Kewalram Singapore's interest in the firm has increased to 7.2 per cent, from 4.4 per cent earlier, after exercising its warrants to acquire 90.3 million voting shares.

This restores Kewalram's position as a substantial shareholder in Olam.

As a result of the warrant conversion, Temasek Holdings' stake in Olam has been reduced from 56.48 per cent to 54.83 per cent, while Mitsubishi Corporation's stake slipped from 18.38 per cent to 17.82 per cent.

Both are the largest and second largest shareholder of Olam respectively.

Kewalram Singapore is an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Kewalram Chanrai Holdings Limited.

The group, together with its chief executive Sunny Verghese, founded Olam. It was the largest shareholder of the group until March 2014 when Temasek made an offer for Olam's shares.

Kewalram Singapore had sold 222 million Olam shares, or an 8 per cent stake, to Mitsubishi Corp for S$615 million in September 2015.