More Procurri shareholders come out against Novo Tellus' partial offer
Approval looks increasingly unlikely
Singapore
PROCURRI Corporation has received letters from more shareholders, collectively owning about 8.8 per cent of the company's shares indicating the intention to vote against private equity firm Novo Tellus' partial offer at 36.5 Singapore cents per share.
They include substantial shareholder Koh Swee Yong, who owns approximately 5.9 per cent of Procurri's shares. The others are Tan Wei Meng, Phang Chee Can and Tan Joon Ngee.
This comes after Novo Tellus released an announcement saying that its offer price of 36.5 cents per share was final, except in the case of a competitive situation, on April 21.
DeClout and asset manager ICH Gemini said that they both intended to vote against the offer.
DeClout, a former parent of Procurri that invests in technology companies, owns 21.2 per cent of Procurri. ICH Gemini owns about 3.9 per cent.
The partial offer was launched to acquire an additional 27.9 per cent of Procurri's shares. Novo Tellus held 19.5 per cent of Procurri as at the offer announcement date of March 15. A concert party, a company called ACT Holdings, held another 9.2 per cent of Procurri.
This leaves 71.3 per cent of shares that Novo Tellus and its concert party do not hold, in the hands of independent shareholders with some say in the outcome of the offer.
For the offer to take place, Novo Tellus would need more than half of those shareholders - or at least 35.7 per cent of the existing shareholding base - to vote in favour of the offer.
But shareholders with a total of nearly 34 per cent of Procurri voting share capital have now announced that they will be voting against the offer, meaning it is now unlikely that Novo Tellus will be able to secure the necessary shareholder approvals. (See amendment note.)
Procurri shares closed at S$0.355 on Friday, up 1.43 per cent or 0.5 cent.
Amendment note: An earlier version of this article gave the wrong number for the percentage of dissenting votes. This error has been corrected. The article has been further edited for clarity.
