Singha Estate sells off NVD portion

Former parents head to low-rise segment

SET-listed property firm Singha Estate has ended a six-year partnership with one subsidiary Nirvana Daii (NVD) as part of efforts to expand within the housing development business.

Naris Cheyklin, Singha Estate’s chief executive, said the company is structuring its portfolio of investments to accelerate growth while committing to maintaining a significant presence in the housing sector in Thailand.

“During the course of this year, we plan to unveil some exciting new initiatives that will rapidly advance the company in this direction,” Mr Naris said yesterday in a statement.

Singha yesterday reported successfully selling all NVD shares it held, totalling 711,855,320 shares or 51.56% of NVD stock at 2.52 baht per share to Sornsak and Wattana Somwattana.

The transaction was valued at around 1.79 billion baht, resulting in a significant shift in ownership to Mrs Wattana and Mr Sornsak.

Mrs Wattana’s NVD shares rose to around 560 million shares or 40.57% of the total NVD shares from 132.44 million shares or 9.59%.

The shares owned by Mr Sornsak increased to around 363.44 million shares or 26.33% from 79.22 million shares or 5.74%.

NVD is no longer a subsidiary of Singha Estate.

Mr Naris, Thitima Rungkwansiriroj and Nattavuth Mathayomchan, who were NVD’s management team, resigned f rom their positions as director and member of subcommittee at NVD and Nirvana River, an NVD subsidiary.

In 2015, Singha Estate acquired Nirvana (the company’s former name) through a share swap, before Nirvana took over MAI-listed home builder and construction materials producer Daii Group in 2017.

Singha Estate issued around 186.5 million new shares for NVD in exchange for 3.65 million shares of NVD.

The transaction gave Singha Estate 51% of Nirvana’s shares while Nirvana held 3.8% of Singha Estate shares.

Last November, Mr Naris said Singha Estate wanted to dispose of all its shareholding stake in NVD to allow business expansion in low-rise housing development in all segments.

“During the pandemic, low-rise housing sales of top developers grew 10% in the first nine months of 2020 against a drop in other sectors,” he said. “We want to tap into this segment without any conflict of interest with NVD, so we sold the shares.”