Quick take: Karambunai shares jump 23% on privatisation

KUALA LUMPUR: Karambunai Corp Bhd shares jumped as much as 29% in early Tuesday trade after its largest shareholder, Tan Sri Chen Lip Keong offered to take the company private.

The property and tourism company surged 23.53%, or two sen to 10.5 sen with 2.2 million shares done. Karambunai-WC jumped 66.67%, or one sen to 2.5 sen with 10.9 million shares traded.

Chen, the gaming tycoon, is currently the single largest shareholder of Karambunai with a 73.4% stake.

Karambunai has received an unconditional voluntary takeover offer from UOB Kay Hian Securities (M) Sdn Bhd on behalf of Chen to acquire the remaining 1.54 billion shares or 26.59% interest in the company not already held by him, at a cash price of 11 sen per share.

He is also offering three sen apiece for the remaining 523.5 million warrants, representing 51.57% of the outstanding warrants he does not hold.

In 2016, Chen made an offer to take the loss-making Karambunai private at five sen a share and two sen per warrant.

His earlier offer didn’t go through and independent adviser Inter-Pacific Securities Sdn Bhd at that time had deemed the offer as “not fair” but “reasonable”.

Source: TheStar