ThaiBev receives eligibility-to-list letter from SGX for potential listing of BeerCo

BEER and liquor giant Thai Beverage Public Co (ThaiBev) announced that the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited (SGX-ST) had, on Thursday, issued its conditional eligibility-to-list (ETL) letter for the potential listing of ThaiBev's brewery unit on the SGX mainboard.

In February, ThaiBev confirmed that it is looking to spin off and list brewery unit BeerCo, and had received a no-objection letter from SGX for the listing of nearly 20 per cent of it.

BeerCo has three breweries in Thailand as well as an interest in a network of 26 breweries in Vietnam. Its business includes the production, distribution and sales of beer, including the Chang and Bia Saigon brands.

In a bourse filing on Friday, ThaiBev said that the ETL letter "is not to be taken as an indication of the merits of the proposed spin-off listing, BeerCo or its subsidiaries, or the shares of BeerCo".

It added that the receipt of the letter is just "one of the requirements which has to be met" in order to proceed with the potential listing, which is also subject to, among other things, requisite approvals from the relevant regulatory authorities and the prevailing market conditions.

"The board of directors of ThaiBev may, notwithstanding that all requisite regulatory approvals have been obtained or will be obtained in due course, decide not to proceed with the proposed spin-off listing if, having regard to investors' interests and responses at any material time and taking into consideration any other relevant factors, the board deems it not in the interests of the shareholders of ThaiBev to proceed with the same," said the statement.

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It reiterated that there is no certainty or assurance that the potential listing of BeerCo will materialise in due course, and said it will announce material updates in accordance with the relevant regulations.

In February, ThaiBev announced that BeerCo had posted a net profit of S$77.4 million for the first quarter ended Dec 31, 2020.

This represents a 72.4 per cent increase from S$44.9 million in the previous year, and comes despite lower sales revenue of S$1.32 billion - down 11.4 per cent from S$1.49 billion a year ago.

The group had said then that a spin-off and listing would provide the business enhanced diversity and corporate structure; increase the value of its portfolio to dominate a growing mass market; and provide greater flexibility to explore beer partnerships and value enhancement.