Sizing up the latest privatisation offers

THE seemingly unending Groundhog Day of lowball privatisation offers for locally listed companies continued this past week - with the latest candi-dates being stainless steel products distributor Sin Ghee Huat and real estate player Top Global.

Like most such transactions, these latest offers are from the respective major shareholders of the two companies. The presented rationale for both deals is that minority investors will be able to cash out at prices that are higher than the recent market prices of the two stocks, sans brokerage charges.

Yet, the offers are anything but generous. Both are plainly opportunistic, coming after a period of poor performance by the companies and just as the post-Covid-19 recovery is gathering steam. More importantly, both deals seem to significantly undervalue the assets and businesses held by the two companies.