Insider moves: Standard Life Aberdeen’s AEM stake rises above 5%; Peter Lim trims FJ Benjamin stake
Standard Life Aberdeen has emerged as a substantial owner of AEM Holdings. On March 25, the UK-based fund manager acquired 1,069,500 shares on the open market for nearly $4.4 million, or $4.1 each share. The fund manager now owns a deemed interest of 14.35 million shares, up from nearly 13.3 million shares, equivalent to 5.208%, up from 4.82% previously.
Aberdeen’s move is opposite that of the Employees Provident Fund Board of Malaysia. On Feb 17, EPF sold 507,500 shares at nearly $2.3 million, or $4.50 each, in the open market. With the sale, the EPF is left with just over 13.3 million shares, equivalent to a stake of 4.844%, down from 5.028% earlier.
Aberdeen’s decision to snap up more AEM shares came right after a major capital expenditure announcement by US semiconductor giant Intel Corp, which is believed to rely solely on AEM as its supplier of test handlers. In a bid to better compete with the likes of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, Intel plans to spend US$20 billion ($27 billion) to expand its capacity, which includes building two new wafer fabs in the US.
“Intel’s decision to increase its capex and get back into the foundry business, if successful, could translate into higher volume of chip production,” says CGS-CIMB analyst William Tng in his March 24 note. “This, in turn, could lead to higher test and assembly demand internally, leading to higher orders for AEM’s test handlers in time to come,” he says, reiterating his “add” call and $4.63 target price.
On Feb 25, AEM reported FY2020 ended December 2020 earnings of $97.6 million, up 85% over FY2019’s $52.8 million. Revenue in the same period was up 60.6% to $519 million.
Peter Lim converts warrants and sell
Billionaire investor Peter Lim Eng Hock has steadily been trimming his stake in retailer FJ Benjamin Holdings. On March 30, he sold nearly 8.09 million shares on the open market for $339,767.40, or 4.2 cents per share. With the sale, he is left with just over 109 million shares, equivalent to a stake of 10.67%, down from 11.47% earlier.
In a regulatory filing on March 24, FJ Benjamin disclosed that Lim converted the warrants he had held to 20 million shares at $800,000, representing a conversion price of 4 cents each. In the same filing, FJ Benjamin also disclosed that Lim had sold 1.55 million shares for $65,113, which works out to 4.2 cents each.
Earlier on March 18, he had converted warrants into 18 million shares for $720,000 in total, or 4 cents each. On the same day, he sold off all 18 million shares on the market for $786,060 and sold another 11 million shares for $473,000.
Besides Lim, FJ Benjamin can count another billionaire as a shareholder. On April 1, Far East Organization’s Phillip Ng, via his vehicles, converted 33.6 million warrants to shares at 4 cents each. He now has a deemed stake of 79.1 million FJ Benjamin shares, equivalent to a stake of 7.46%, up from 4.44% previously.
In recent weeks, as the warrant conversions took place, FJ Benjamin made a couple of announcements, which probably led to an increase in trading volume of the shares. On March 26, it announced that it had signed an MOU with FinTech firm Aleta Planet to launch a co-branded UnionPay virtual debit card that will help make shopping and payment easier and safer as well as offer generous cash rebates to cardholders.
Earlier on March 12, FJ Benjamin announced it had won exclusive rights from AIRFREE, Portugal’s top air purifier company, to distribute its products in Indonesia.
On March 3, FJ Benjamin also signed an MOU with ecommerce platform Lazada to help “boost” the former’s ecommerce performance of the brands it sells in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia and integrate FJ Benjamin’s bricksand-mortar and virtual stores.
A day earlier on March 2, FJ Benjamin transferred its listing from the Mainboard to the Catalist board after struggling for years to get out of the SGX Watchlist for persistently loss-making Mainboard companies.
On Feb 4, FJ Benjamin reported losses in 1HFY2021 ended Dec 30, 2020, surged to $3.7 million from $161,000 a year earlier. Revenue in the same period dropped 39% y-o-y to $38 million. E