Yi-Lai gets takeover offer

Hampton Capital offers 78.5 sen per share to take tile maker private

PETALING JAYA: The largest shareholder of Yi-Lai Bhd has made a conditional offer to take the tile manufacturer private, barely over a year after a deal to sell the company to Penang-based property developer Aspen Group fell through.

Hampton Capital Pte Ltd, which owns a third of Yi-Lai, is offering 78.5 sen per share to buy out other shareholders in the company.

Shares in Yi-Lai were last traded at 78.5 sen before trading was suspended at 4.29pm yesterday to make way for the announcement.

The conditional mandatory take-over offer was triggered after Hampton Capital’s shareholding in Yi-Lai crossed the 33% threshold following a series of open-market transactions by its unit, Boundless Vigour Sdn Bhd.

Between Sept 8 and Oct 4, 2017, Boundless Vigour acquired 550,000 shares in Yi-Lai at prices ranging between 75 sen and 78.5 sen.

The company yesterday increased its shareholding by acquiring another 40,300 shares at between RM0.78 and RM0.785 per share, raising its shareholding to 0.39%, while Hampton Capital held a 32.63% equity interest in Yi-Lai.

The acquisition resulted in the collective shareholdings increasing to 33.02%.

Hampton Capital is a unit of Capital Global Ventures Ltd, which is 50:50 owned by Aaron Tan Jian Hong and Wendy Kang Hui Lin,

Tan is an executive director of Yi-Lai, while Kang is a non-independent, non-executive director, based on the company’s most recent annual report. They are deemed the ultimate offerers of the takeover bid.

Based on the announcement to the stock exchange, Hampton Capital does not intend to maintain the listing status of the company if it, together with Boundless Vigour, Tan and Kang, end up with over 75% shareholding in Yi-Lai following the mandatory offer.

However, if it receives acceptances resulting in its ownership of less than 75% of the shares in the company, the listing status will be maintained. In February last year, Yi-Lai announced a planned RM550mil reverse takeover of the company by Aspen Group.

In its announcement to the stock exchange, the company said the move would enable existing shareholders to participate in a “new, viable and profitable core business in property development” through Aspen Group. However, subsequent filings in July 2016 revealed that Aspen Group had failed to meet the Securities Commission’s requirement to have at least three full financial years’ track record in operating the same core business.

Yi-Lai had sought a waiver against this rule, which the regulator turned down.