Jardine Cycle & Carriage (JC&C) has submitted a notice of unconditional voluntary take-over offer to the board of directors of Cycle & Carriage Bintang (CCB) – the group’s business unit in Malaysia.
JC&C currently holds about 89.994% of the issued share capital of CCB, which is currently listed on the main market of Bursa Malaysia Securities. CCB’s principal activities are the retail of vehicles and provision of after-sales services. It is one of the leading Mercedes-Benz dealers in Malaysia with a network of 11 outlets in the country.
Under the terms of the offer, JC&C will seek to acquire all the remaining shares of CCB that it does not currently hold at a consideration of RM2.70 per offer share. In the event of the offer being fully accepted, the total consideration for this take over would stand at about RM27.2 million ($8.6 million).
The offer is not conditional upon the receipt of any minimum level of valid acceptances.
The group will fund this acquisition through internal resources and/or external borrowings.
To recap, this is JC&C’s third attempt to takeover CCB, as it did not manage to acquire all the shares from other existing shareholders. On June 4, 2021, after its second take over attempt, JC&C announced that it only managed to raise its shareholding to 88.04%. It purchased the shares back then at RM2.40 per share.
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See: Jardine Cycle & Carriage to acquire remaining shares in Cycle & Carriage Bintang at RM2.40 per offer share
JC&C’s first attempt to privatise CCB was in November 2019 via a proposed selective capital reduction (SCR) and repayment exercise at RM2.20 per share.
At the time, minority shareholders blocked the privatisation with more than 10% of disinterested shareholders including listed company Muar Ban Lee Group Bhd voting against the SCR.
As at July 14, shares in CCB closed at RM2.56, while shares in JC&C closed at $26.55.
