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FSL Trust receives cash takeover bid by controlling unitholder

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Singapore-listed First Ship Lease Trust (FSL Trust) has received a mandatory conditional cash offer of SGD0.0585 per unit for all its outstanding units from a group of investors led by Prime Marine’s Efstathios Topouzoglou.

The offeror and its concert party, FSL Trust Management, are already the controlling unitholder of FSL Trust holding around 877.2m units representing approximately 55.04% of the issued units of FSL Trust as at 7 June 2019.

The SGD0.0585 per unit cash offer represents a 33% premium to the last transacted price of SGD0.044 on 6 June, the last market day prior to the offer announcement. FSL Trust's units closed unchanged at SGD0.058 last Friday.

“It is the current intention of the offeror that FSL Trust continues with its existing activities and there are presently no plans to make any material changes to FSL Trust’s existing business, re-deploy its fixed assets or to discontinue the employment of its employees, except in the ordinary course of business,” stated CEL Impetus Corporate Finance on behalf of FSL Trust’s sponsor FSL Holdings.

Financial consultant CEL Impetus Corporate Finance had first announced the cash offering on 7 June 2019.

The offeror also does not intend to delist FSL Trust from the Singapore Exchange (SGX), but it reserves the right to assess its options if FSL Trust’s free float falls below the minimum requirement.

Read more: FSL Trust placed on SGX watch-list under minimum trading price rule

FSL Trust us currently on a watch-list under SGX’s Minimum Trading Price (MTP) rule due to its volume-weighted six-month average trading price of less than SGD0.20 and a six-month average daily market capitalisation of less than SGD40m.

Stirling Coleman Capital Limited has been appointed as the independent financial adviser for the transaction.