KUALA LUMPUR (May 8): Private equity fund Navis Capital Partners Ltd has carried on to reduce its stake in higher education group SEG International Bhd (SEGi) to 56.83%.

Navis Capital on Monday (May 8) sold 13 million shares through Pinnacle Heritage Solutions Sdn Bhd, bringing its total shareholding to 695.36 million shares.

It has been spotted to offload shares in SEGi since September 21, 2022. From then, Navis Capital has disposed of a total of 160.9 million shares in nine tranches to date.

For the financial year ended Dec 31, 2022 (FY2022), SEGi’s net profit fell 26.9% to RM8.38 million from RM11.47 million a year earlier. Revenue dropped 11.17% to RM50.75 million from RM57.13 million a year ago.

In March 2022, a top executive of SEGi quashed speculation of a possible sale of the company in the near term to a Chinese party. Talk of the sale to a Chinese group first surfaced in February 2020 and resurfaced in late 2021.

Navis first emerged as a major shareholder of SEGi in April 2012 after it acquired 27.84% stake from the then existing major shareholders Cerahsar Sdn Bhd and Segmen Entiti Sdn Bhd. It then launched an unconditional takeover offer for all the remaining shares in the group for RM1.714 per share.

The offer valued SEGi at RM1.1 billion then.

On Monday, shares of SEGi closed unchanged, with its share price having remained at 65 sen since April 26, valuing the group at RM822.73 million.

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