Voluntary conditional cash offer for Chip Eng Seng turns mandatory
Patricia Karunungan
CHIP Eng Seng chairman Celine Tang’s voluntary conditional cash offer to acquire the property player has turned mandatory, after she and her husband, Gordon Tang, purchased 6.3 million shares of Chip Eng Seng in early trade on Friday (Nov 25).
The couple acquired the new shares at a price of S$0.72 apiece, bringing their total shareholding of Chip Eng Seng to about 42.3 per cent, or some 331.4 million shares.
Prior to the new acquisition, they jointly owned just shy of 290.7 million shares of the company, or about 38.23 per cent of its total shares.
Hence, the Tangs’ current enlarged shareholding percentage triggered the Singapore Exchange (SGX) rule on mandatory general offers.
Chip Eng Seng requested a trading halt on Friday morning amid heavy trading volumes, but by the end of the midday trading break it had asked for a trade resumption.
Shares of Chip Eng Seng were trading flat at S$0.73 as at 1.29 pm, after the trading halt was lifted.
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The Tang couple tabled the original voluntary conditional offer on Thursday through Tang Dynasty Treasure, an investment holding company under their ownership. They intended to acquire all issued ordinary shares of Chip Eng Seng at S$0.72 apiece, with the end goal of privatising and delisting the property player from the SGX should they attain more than 90 per cent of the shares.
According to the offer announcement issued by UOB on the offeror’s behalf, the terms of the offer remain unchanged.
The Tang couple still intends to fully acquire Chip Eng Seng’s issued ordinary shares at a price tag of S$0.72 each, with the offer to turn unconditional upon holding more than 50 per cent of the shares at the offer’s close.
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The Tangs will need to attain more than 90 per cent of Chip Eng Seng’s shares in order to take the company private. The couple recently privatised Singhaiyi Group at a significant discount to its net asset value. Singhaiyi was delisted from SGX on Jan 31.
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