UMS makes general offer for JEP at S$0.15 per share

MAINBOARD-listed precision engineering firm UMS Holdings said on Monday that it has acquired another 10.9 per cent of the shares in Catalist-listed JEP Holdings, through a married deal with mainboard-listed Ellipsiz.

UMS paid S$6.6 million or S$0.15 a share for each JEP share, with the deal raising its stake in the latter from 27.9 per cent to 38.8 per cent.

The acquisition triggered a mandatory cash offer for the rest of the shares in JEP, though the offer will only become unconditional if UMS receives, by the close of the offer, valid acceptances for it to control more than 50 per cent of JEP.

The offer price of S$0.15 represents a 4.5 per cent discount over JEP's volume-weighted average price for the one month leading to last Friday. On Monday, JEP shares jumped 1.6 Singapore cents or 10.26 per cent to S$0.172.

UMS said it currently intends to preserve the listing status of JEP, but added that it maintains the flexibility to assess its options in the event the public float falls below 10 per cent.

UMS chief executive Andy Luong said: "The proposed acquisition of JEP is in line with our group's overall diversification strategy to tap new growth sectors beyond the semiconductor industry. JEP has recently demonstrated a positive turnaround to achieve an increase in net profit attributable to the owners of the company of more than 160 per cent for FY2018 from FY2017."

UMS will also make an offer to acquire all outstanding warrants issued by JEP. The warrants offer will be unconditional in all respects. The offer price for each warrant will be S$0.074.

UMS shares fell 4.65 per cent or three Singapore cents to S$0.615 on Monday. (Please see amendment note)

Amendment Note: An earlier version of this story quoted the wrong closing price for UMS.