OFFSHORE oil and gas equipment manufacturer Amos Group on Tuesday (Nov 5) said it has lost its free float and intends to extend the deadline for shareholders to accept the offer made by its controlling shareholder.
The group in September received a voluntary unconditional general offer of S$0.07 cents a share in cash from its controlling shareholder, PeakBayou, a private equity fund of Hong Kong-based ShawKwei & Partners, which is in turn majority-owned by Amos Group’s executive chairman, Kyle Arnold Shaw.
As at Tuesday, close to 91.1 per cent of the shares in Amos Group are owned, controlled, acquired or agreed to be acquired by PeakBayou and parties acting in concert with it.
This includes about 16.4 million shares, which represents about 7.9 per cent of the shares in the group, that had accepted the offer as of Tuesday.
As the offeror and parties acting in concert hold more than 90 per cent of the shares, trading in the shares of Amos Group may be suspended by Singapore Exchange Securities Trading at the close of the offer, as it no longer fulfils the free-float requirement.
The requirement refers to an issuer having to ensure that at least 10 per cent of its total number of issued shares are held by the public.
BT in your inbox
Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.
The offer document previously stated that PeakBayou does not intend to preserve the listing status of Amos Group, and does not intend to take steps to resume trading of its shares.
The announcement also stated that the closing date of the offer has been extended to 5.30 pm on Nov 21, from the initial date of Nov 7.
The S$0.07-a-share privatisation offer represents a premium of about 32.1 per cent over Amos’ last traded price of S$0.053. It also represents a premium of 55.6 per cent over the volume weighted average price (VWAP) per share for the one-month period prior to and including the last trading day.
The cash consideration represents about 59.1 per cent, 55.6 per cent and 42.9 per cent premiums over the VWAP per share of Amos over the respective three-month, six-month and 12-month periods, respectively.
When the offer was launched, PeakBayou noted the low trading volume of the company’s shares on the Singapore Exchange, and said that the cash consideration would provide shareholders an opportunity to liquidate and realise their investment at a premium to prevailing market prices.
Shares of Amos Group closed up 1.4 per cent or S$0.001 to S$0.07, before the announcement.