Trendlines portfolio company in talks for share sale

STARTUP incubator The Trendlines Group said early on Tuesday that one of its portfolio companies is in negotiations for the sale of all its shares to an unnamed public corporation.

The portfolio company has signed a non-binding letter of intent (LOI) with the potential buyer, which has "demanded confidentiality" regarding the negotiations, according to Catalist-listed Trendlines' regulatory update.

If a deal is inked and the startup's share sale is completed, the transaction is expected to have a material positive impact on Trendlines' net tangible assets per share and earnings per share for the fiscal year ended Dec 31, 2019, and/or ending Dec 31, 2020.

Trendlines disclosed that its non-executive director Zeev Bronfeld is a minority shareholder of the portfolio company.

The group will announce further information on the transaction only upon the signing of a definitive agreement, in order not to prejudice the ability of its portfolio company to finalise the deal. It will also make announcements if a definitive agreement is not entered into by the LOI's expiry date or if the LOI is terminated.

Trendlines emphasised that there is no assurance of a definitive agreement, or that the sale of its holdings in the portfolio company will be completed even after a definitive agreement has been signed.

The latest update follows the group's Jan 2 announcement that it was in discussions relating to potential exits for multiple portfolio companies. That announcement was in response to the Singapore Exchange's query regarding its 27 per cent jump in share price amid an abnormally high trading volume on Jan 2.

Trendlines shares ended at S$0.107 on Monday, up 0.2 Singapore cent or 1.9 per cent before the announcement.