For a company so widely known to the public, Challenger Technologies seems to have little interest in remaining public. The big question is whether public investors will let go of the popular retailer of technology products this time around – for the just-revised price of S$0.60 per share.

Almost exactly four years ago, at an extraordinary general meeting held on Jun 27, 2019, minority shareholders of Challenger blocked a proposal by the controlling Loo family and Dymon Asia Capital to take the company private at S$0.56 per share.

A key rationale for the privatisation proposal then was that Challenger faced growing competition with the rise of e-commerce, and needed to make changes to its business that required “management commitment and allocation of resources in the near to mid term”. Investors were warned this could affect the company’s dividend.