WCT founders exit firm
Pavilion’s Desmond Lim buys 20% of property cum construction company
PETALING JAYA: The two major owners of WCT Holdings Bhd have sold their stake in the company to Tan Sri Desmond Lim Siew Choon of the Pavilion group.
Bursa Malaysia filings revealed that WCT’s long-serving managing director Peter Taing Kim Hwa (pic) and co-founder Wong Sewe Wing, through their vehicle WCT Capital Sdn Bhd, divested their entire block of 245.72 million WCT shares or 19.67% of the company to Dominion Nexus Sdn Bhd.
Filings revealed that Lim is a substantial shareholder of Dominion Nexus.
The shares were crossed at a price of RM2.50 each, a premium of 75 sen or 42.8% over yesterday’s closing price of RM1.75. The total proceeds from the sale amounted to RM614.3mil.
When contacted, WCT executive director Wong Yik Kae declined to comment on the sale.
Sources said that negotiations between the parties had begun around two months ago, and that the Pavilion group was attracted to the different established businesses of WCT. “The Pavilion group has been on the lookout for a construction company and with this deal, they seem to have found it,” said a dealer.
WCT is a well-known name in construction, property development and engineering.
Among the highways it has constructed include the Kajang-Seremban highway (also known as LEKAS), the Guthrie Corridor Expressway and the Panagarh-Palsit and Durgapur Expressway in India.
WCT, alongside engineering firm KKB Engineering Bhd, recently won a contract worth RM1.29bil for the first phase of the Pan-Borneo Highway project.
The company has also built three Formula 1 circuits in Sepang, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi.
Its property division has built townships, luxury homes, industrial properties, offices, hotels and shopping malls.
WCT’s landbank measures approximately 1,000 acres in Malaysia.
WCT owns three shopping malls, namely, Aeon Bukit Tinggi Shopping Centre in Klang, Paradigm Mall in Petaling Jaya and the integrated complex gateway@klia2 in Sepang.
Its fourth shopping mall, Paradigm Mall in Johor Baru, is slated to open in the third quarter of 2016.
WCT can trace its beginnings to 1981 when two friends and two brothers teamed up to form a company doing earthworks.
They combined the letters of their surnames to form WCT Earthworks and Building Contractors Sdn Bhd, W to stand for the Wong brothers Chew Lai and Sewe Wing, C for Chan Soon Huat and T for Taing.
63-year-old Taing, who has been the face of WCT, was made chief executive then because he had the highest education, having graduated with an economics degree from Sunderland Polytechnic, now University of Sunderland, in the United Kingdom.
Following the share-crossing yesterday, Taing and Sewe Wing are no longer substantial shareholders of WCT.
Meanwhile, the Pavilion group, best known for Pavilion Kuala Lumpur, has established itself as a developer of largescale retail mixed developments in prime city centre locations in Malaysia.
The group began the construction of the RM7bil gross development value Pavilion Damansara Heights this year, which is expected to be completed by 2021.
Last August, the Pavilion group struck a deal with the largest pension fund manager in Canada that agreed to invest RM485mil for a 49% interest in a joint venture with the Pavilion group to develop Pavilion Damansara Heights.
This was Canada Pension Plan Investment Board’s first direct real estate investment in the region.
Lim, who is the owner of the Pavilion group, is also the main shareholder and executive chairman of property development and construction company Malton Bhd. Apart from that, he serves as the chairman and executive director of Pavilion Real Estate Investment Trust Management Sdn Bhd. Some of Malton’s projects include Bukit Jalil City, Pavilion Damansara Heights and Royale Pavilion hotel.