KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 26): Berjaya Corp Bhd (BCorp) founder and major shareholder Tan Sri Vincent Tan Chee Yioun has now trimmed his stake in the diversified group to 19.061%.

Tan sold two blocks of shares in a direct business transaction on Wednesday (Jan 25). According to BCorp’s filings, he sold 110.08 million shares via Hotel Enterprise Sdn Bhd and another 15.92 million shares through B & B Enterprise Sdn Bhd.

Following the transactions, Tan's direct stake in BCorp now stands at 7.814%, while his indirect stake is 11.247%.

BCorp is currently in talks to acquire a 51% stake in life insurance company MCIS Life Sdn Bhd. To facilitate the acquisition, Tan, as chairman, intends to reduce his stake in BCorp to 19.6% from 26%.

The group is not new to the financial services business. It is currently in the insurance business through its 30% stake in Berjaya Sompo Insurance Bhd. Sompo Holdings (Asia) Pte Ltd owns the remaining 70% stake. The company also wholly owns a stock brokerage firm — Inter-Pacific Securities Sdn Bhd.

In January alone, Tan sold 417.3 million BCorp shares.

In a separate announcement from BCorp, Lim Kuang Wang acquired 80 million shares of BCorp via a direct business transaction.

This increased his stake to 6.627% from 5.194% on Dec 23. Lim is a former executive director of Kossan Rubber Industries Bhd.

At the time of writing, BCorp shares were trading up half a sen or 1.47% to 34.5 sen, translating into a market capitalisation of RM2.03 billion. Over the past year, the stock has risen 44%.