SRS Auto Holdings makes S$0.0088 per share privatisation offer for Allied Technologies

Private car rental and motor financing company SRS Auto Holdings has made a privatisation offer of S$0.0088 per share in cash for metal stamping manufacturer Allied Technologies : A13 0%.

With 1.77 billion shares, the deal values Allied Tech at S$15.6 million. The privatisation value is also 20 per cent lower than its last traded price of S$0.011. Shares in the company have been voluntarily suspended since May 8, 2019.

The company’s net asset value per share stood at S$0.0379 as at Mar 31, 2022.

In a bourse filing on Friday (Jun 17), the company said that SRS Auto and persons acting in concert with it control 42.7 per cent of the total number of issued shares. The offerors also intend to delist the company if they gain control of more than 90 per cent of its shares.

Kenneth Low, who is an executive director of Allied Tech and has a shareholding of 5.7 per cent, is also acting in concert with SRS Auto.

SRS Auto is wholly owned by Tan Yew Kiat, and has an issued and paid-up share capital of S$6.2 million.

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The company said that the deal offers shareholders an opportunity to exit their investments since the counter has been suspended from trading.

In addition, the offeror believes that it will have more flexibility to manage the business and optimise Allied Tech’s resources if it is privatised. Delisting will also save the company compliance costs, it said.

This comes after Low and existing shareholder Lin Tah Hwa had proposed the removal of independent non-executive director and chairman Chin Chee Choon and chief executive Clement Leow, as well as the appointment of 3 new directors in May this year.

Lin, who also provided an irrevocable undertaking for the deal, holds 9.5 per cent of Allied Tech’s shares.

In April this year, special auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers Risk Services was engaged to look into missing funds at Allied Tech as well as the company’s disposal of 2 China subsidiaries.

In its report, the auditors said that independent directors had failed to safeguard the company's interest on several counts, such as in potential undisclosed interested person transactions, private contracts, and transactions accomplished via a supposed “round-tripping” exercise.

In April last year, Low was arrested and named as the co-accused in 5 of the charges faced by former lawyer Jeffrey Ong Su Aun for the alleged misappropriation of Allied Tech's escrow funds.