Some 9.5% of shareholders of The New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Bhd (NSTP) are still resisting a controversial takeover offer of the company by Media Prima Bhd (MPB).
At the close of a takeover offer by MPB yesterday, the company said it received acceptance amounting to 196.6 million shares in NSTP, which represents 90.49% of the company.
This is an additional 0.88% from the 89.62% MPB held at the date of posting of the offer document on July 16.
This means that some 9.5% of shareholders of the company are still holding out despite MPB intending to delist NSTP.
This is following the approval obtained by MPB from shareholders on NSTP to delist NSTP on June 28. Yesterday MPB got the greenlight from Bursa for the delisting of NSTP.
NSTP stated in an announcement that the shares would be suspended on July 30 and shareholders who had yet to accept the offer had one month from yesterday to do so.
To recap, MPB had embarked on a privatisation of NSTP in 2009 but failed to secure at least 90% of outstanding NSTP shares when it made its general offer late last year.
This is because dissenting shareholders viewed the offer at RM2.40 per share as too low considering NSTP’s net asset value of more than RM4.20 per share.
Following the privatisation offer, Media Prima ended up with 89.62% of NSTP.
Nonetheless, NSTP’s shareholders gave MPB the green light to delist the company at an EGM on June 28, 2010.
Following this shareholder approval, MPB repeated its exit offer of RM2.40 per NSTP share via the issuance of six MPB shares at RM2 each and one free MPB warrant, for every five offer shares accepted.
MPB needed to secure 90% of the remaining shares it did not own to compulsorily acquire all the shares in NSTP. This means it needed to secure about 9% more of NSTP.
But its offer received only 0.88% aceptance, falling short of the threshold.
NSTP added two sen to RM2.50, while MPB shed one sen to RM2.08 at yesterday’s close.
This article appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, July 23, 2010.
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