Stocks to watch: CDL, ComfortDelGro, Centurion, Fullerton Health, Datapulse Technology

THE following companies made announcements after the market closed last week or on early Monday morning, which may affect trading of their shares.

City Developments Limited (CDL): CDL has raised its offer price to acquire the remaining stake in London-listed Millenium & Copthorne Hotels (M&C) that it does not yet own, in a deal that M&C's independent directors have agreed to. CDL, a majority shareholder which holds 65.2 per cent of M&C, has raised the offer price to 620 pence per share, up from 552.5 pence earlier. This offer, which CDL said is final and will not be raised further, values M&C at about £2.01 billion (S$3.64 billion), compared with the previous valuation of £1.8 billion. M&C's independent directors, who are being advised by Credit Suisse, consider the terms of the final offer to be fair and reasonable. They therefore intend to unanimously recommend that M&C shareholders accept the final offer.

ComfortDelGro: Taxi giant ComfortDelGro is taking a majority 51 per cent stake in Uber's rental car business Lion City Holdings in a deal valued at about S$642 million. ComfortDelgro and Uber said in a joint statement that the deal includes a cash consideration of S$295 million. This will put ComfortDelGro's taxis and Lion City Rental's private-hire cars - which total 14,000 units - under a centralised fleet management system, which will handle the despatching of vehicles to customers.

Centurion Corp: Dormitory developer Centurion Corp has priced its secondary-listing offer in Hong Kong at HK$3.18 per share, near the mid-point of price talk between HK$3 and HK$3.30. The net proceeds from the share offer is estimated to be about HK$69.7 million (S$12.08 million), with the company intending to use HK$62.7 million of the proceeds for the development of new student accommodation in Adelaide, Australia which would cost about A$45.5 million (S$46.2 million), the company said in a filing with the Singapore Exchange on Monday morning. The rest of the development costs will be financed by internal funds and bank borrowings. The project is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2018. Centurion added that the remaining proceeds from the sale offer of HK$7 million would be used as general working capital.

Fullerton Health: Corporate healthcare solutions provider Fullerton Health has entered into a deal to acquire a 60 per cent stake in Philippine-based Intellicare Group. The deal, which is subject to the fulfilment of certain conditions, is expected to complete in early 2018. When contacted, Fullerton declined to reveal the deal's terms, but said that the company would pay for the stake with a possible combination of debt, cash resources and its recent US$175 million perpetual bond issuance in March 2017.

Datapulse Technology: Three non-executive directors at Datapulse Technology have stepped down after a change in its controlling shareholder. The firm's chairman, Hee Theng Fong, and non-executive directors Hillary Quah Lam Seng and Guok Chin Huat Samuel resigned with effect from Dec 10, the loss-making digital storage products firm announced. Mr Hee and Ms Quah are long-time directors, having been appointed to the board in 1994 and 1999, respectively. Mr Guok was appointed in August 2012. Their departures follow the sale of a 22.3 per cent stake in the firm by Ng Cheow Chye, the firm's deputy chairman, chief executive officer, and substantial shareholder. He had on Nov 10 disposed of his entire stake of 48.9 million shares through an off-market transaction for S$26.9 million, or 55 Singapore cents a share. The firm later announced that Ng Siew Hong had on Nov 22 acquired a 29 per cent stake in Datapulse, after buying 63.5 million shares for S$34.9 million through an off-market transaction.