THE Samling group is understood to be one of the five bidders shortlisted to acquire a 30% stake in Singapored-listed United Engineers Ltd (UE), a company with interests in property, engineering, distribution, and manufacturing, sources familiar with the matter tell The Edge.
The stake will be acquired from UE’s major shareholders Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp (OCBC), Great Eastern Holdings Ltd and Lee Rubber Company (Pte) Ltd.
Other shortlisted entities are two companies from China, a Hong-Kong based outfit, and a company linked to Thai billionaire Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, possibly TCC Top Enterprise Ltd, with Credit Suisse in Singapore handling the merchant banking work, the sources add.
This means that some of the big names earlier associated with the acquisition, such as the Riady family-controlled OUE Ltd, may have fallen out of the race.
Samling seems to be up against some big names, but it still stands a chance.
“Samling stands a good chance [to acquire the 30% in UE]. It knows UE and the Lee Rubber family from when it [Samling] acquired Wearns Automotive [Pte] from UE in 2014, and since then there has been a good relationship,” the source adds.
Samling had acquired Wearnes Automotive for S$450 million (then RM1.1 billion), beating Hong Kong’s Swire Pacific Ltd and Dubai’s Al-Futtaim Group.
UE’s largest shareholder is OCBC which, together with its insurance unit Great Eastern, has 20.47% controlling interest (OCBC has a direct 4.12% stake and 16.35% under Great Eastern). The bank also holds almost 70% of UE’s preference shares, while Lee Foundation States of Malaya, a unit of Lee Rubber Company, has 8.27%.
OCBC is 19.77% controlled by the Lee Foundation.
It is understood that the price sought for the 30% stake in UE is considerably higher than the trading price, but the exact figure is not known. However, there is likely to be a premium considering that the 30% block gives the new shareholder control of UE.
UE’s market capitalisation is just below the S$2 billion mark. It closed at S$2.93 last Friday, giving it a market capitalisation of S$1.87 billion. Thus, the market value of its 30% stake is about S$560.37 million (RM1.76 billion).
However, UE’s net asset per share is S$2.98, which is slightly higher than its trading price.
“Most property companies are trading below their net asset per share. The real valuation comes from the quality of the land bank a company has,” a market watcher says.
Based on UE’s last annual report, it has four investment properties in Singapore — UE BizHub City in Clemenceau Avenue, on leasehold for 866 years; a mixed-use development in one-north Buona Vista Road, which has both retail and hospitality businesses, on a 88-year leasehold; UE BizHub Tower in Anson Road; and UE BizHub West in Alexandra Road.
UE also has a 67.6% stake in Chengdu Orchard Villa in Chengdu, China, where serviced and residential apartments are being built.
In Singapore, UE’s mainstay is in property rental, while in Malaysia, the company has condominiums in Jalan Raja Chulan, Kuala Lumpur. The company is also active in the Asean region.
This is not the first time Lee Rubber has sought to sell a block in UE. It has made previous attempts but they did not go through. A couple of years ago, Charoen was singled out to negotiate but the talks were not successful.
UE has been selling non-core assets, in what market watchers say is a pruning exercise, prior to being hived off by OCBC and the Lee family. In recent years, it sold stakes in an Indonesian fabricator, a property management company in China, and a Singapore wireless broadband provider.
In Malaysia, the Lee family has been divesting assets for a few years now, and reports have it that the latest on the block is a 1.81-acre parcel in Jalan Raja Chulan.
Both UE and Samling have a lot of history.
OCBC was founded by the Lee family, of Lee Rubber fame. In August 2015, Lee Seng Wee, then the chairman of OCBC, passed away after a fall. He was the youngest son of Tan Sri Lee Kong Chian, a rubber trader who started Lee Rubber in the 1930s and spearheaded the merger of several small banks to create OCBC.
Apart from banking and rubber, the Lee family has several choice plots of land in Kuala Lumpur and Penang.
Although Samling is Sarawak-based, it does have large-scale businesses in Singapore. Otto Marine Ltd, an oil and gas company previously traded on the Singapore bourse, was privatised by Yaw Chee Siew, via his vehicle Ocean International Capital Ltd, offering 32 Singapore cents, or S$26.37 million, for the 38.8% stake in Otto Marine that he did not own. Chee Siew is the son of Tan Sri Yaw Teck Seng, the patriarch of the Samling group.
Samling has interests in the plantation, logging, property development and automotive sectors, among others, and Teck Seng and son Chee Ming were jointly listed as Malaysia’s 19th richest people by Forbes last year.
Samling’s main companies on Bursa Malaysia, Glenealy Plantations (M) Bhd and Lingui Developments Bhd, were privatised in 2012 and 2013 respectively. Similarly, Samling Global Ltd was also privatised from the Hong Kong stock exchange in 2012.
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