SINGAPORE (June 26): Indofood Sukses Makmur’s bid to take over mainboard-listed Indofood Agri Resources has lapsed – with the controlling shareholder falling less than 2 percentage points off the mark.
The Indomie maker, backed by Indonesia’s Salim Group, had made a buyout offer of 32.75 cents per share for Indofood Agri.
The offer was conditional upon Indofood Sukses Makmur holding more than a 90% stake in Indofood Agri at the close of the offer at 5.30pm on June 25.
But Indofood Sukses Makmur came up just short.
At the close of the offer, the shares owned, controlled or agreed to be acquired, including valid acceptances of the offer, resulted in a shareholding of 88.08%.
The lapse of the offer will now see all offer shares tendered in acceptance of the offer returned to shareholders.
Earlier this month, Indofood Sukses Makmur had increased its offer price by some 18% from its initial offer price of 27.75 cents per share, after adjustment for the FY2018 dividend of 0.25 cent. It had earlier also extended the closing date of the offer by a month, from May 24 to June 25.
See: Offer for Indofood Agri revised to 32.75 cents
The revised offer price came in the wake of criticism by market observers.
In a column published in The Edge Singapore on May 20, editor-at-large Ben Paul opined that the offer price of 28 cents per share “significantly undervalues the long-term potential of the assets held by IndoAgri”.
See: Open letter to the board of Indofood Agri Resources [subscribers only]
Indofood Sukses Makmur has said it wants to take the agribusiness group private and delist from the Singapore Exchange for better management.
After offer shares have been returned to shareholders who had accepted the offer, Indofood Sukses Makmur and its concert parties will own 74.53% of Indofood Agri.
Shares in Indofood Agri took a tumble in morning trading on Wednesday. As at 11.16am, its shares are trading 4 cents lower, or down 12.7%, at 27.5 cents.
