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狮城理财 LV13
发表于 9-10-2012 14:24:23
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退市，又上一次！
Courts to list on SGX again
2012-10-09 00:31:44.970 GMT
By jonathan kwok
Oct. 9 (Straits Times) -- ELECTRONICS and home furnishing
retailer Courts is seeking to list on the Singapore Exchange
(SGX) less than four years after it delisted at the height of the
global financial crisis.
A restructured vehicle, Courts Asia, is selling 178 million
shares at 77 cents each, the top of an earlier-set indicative
price range.
About 76.9 million units are for institutional and large
investors in a placement exercise, 77.9 million shares are for
cornerstone investors and 14.3 million units are for key
management.
The public tranche is 8.9 million shares. Retail investors
have until noon on Thursday to subscribe. Courts Asia shares are
expected to debut next Monday.
The placement tranche has been more than three times
oversubscribed, said Mr Matthew Song, head of equity capital
markets for South-east Asia at HSBC, which is the global
coordinator, bookrunner, underwriter and issue manager.
Courts Asia will sell a mixture of new shares and stock from
its controlling shareholder, Singapore Retail Group (SRG), which
is paring its stake.
SRG had privatised Courts Singapore from the local bourse in
December 2008. A year earlier, SRG's parent, Asia Retail Group,
delisted Courts Mammoth from the Malaysia bourse.
Asia Retail Group, whose owners include Barings Private
Equity Asia and Kuwait-based Topaz Investment Worldwide, spent
the next few years restructuring and improving the business.
Operations in Thailand and Indonesia were closed down as
were many stores in loss-making Malaysia. Malaysia's remaining
stores were overhauled and new ones set up. The Malaysian
operations returned to the black and are bundled with the
Singapore business for the Courts Asia listing.
The 2007 delisting had valued Courts Mammoth at RM288
million (S$116 million) while SRG had spent about $103 million to
privatise Courts Singapore. The market value of Courts Asia will
be much higher, at about $431 million when it lists next Monday.
But chief executive Terry O'Connor said the valuations then
and now should not be compared due to the different business
performance for Courts Asia. "We've more than doubled our profits
in the last two years, and that (two years ago) was a multiple of
where we started. So I think there's no direct pricing comparison
when you are looking at such a different scale in terms of
operating performance," he noted. "Every which way you look at
it, you can't compare the old and the new."
Mr O'Connor said Courts Asia wants to have only one listing,
without another one across the Causeway.
SRG will get $86.2 million in net proceeds from paring down
its stake while Courts Asia will get $43.8 million from selling
new shares.
Courts Asia will use over 90 per cent of its takings to
expand into Indonesia.
The stores it had earlier closed down were in Bali, Lombok
and East Java but now Courts Asia wants to open much larger
stores in Jakarta.
"We intend to launch megastore formats which have retail
areas exceeding 60,000 sq ft in urban areas to better capture our
core targeted customers - the rising middle class in Indonesia's
growing cities," said Mr O'Connor.
This is the fourth time Asia Retail Group has moved to sell
off - or reduce its stake in - Courts Asia.
It hired bankers to sell the asset in October last year,
said an earlier Reuters report, adding that the business could
fetch US$400 million (S$492 million). Following that initiative,
the business attracted several bids from interested parties
earlier this year. It is unclear why a sale did not go through.
A planned listing in 2010 was halted amid valuation
concerns. Asia Retail Group also tried to sell the business in
2009 for US$300 million but could not find buyers, reports said.
[email protected]
Copyright 2012 Singapore Press Holdings
-0- Oct/09/2012 00:31 GMT
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