SINGAPORE, April 14 — CapitaLand Ltd, Southeast Asia’s biggest developer, offered to buy the rest of its mall unit for about S$3.06 billion (RM7.9 billion) to boost shareholder value.
CapitaLand bid S$2.22 a share for CapitaMalls Asia, the Singapore-based company said in a statement to the stock exchange today, a 23 per cent premium to the last closing price on April 11.
Trading in shares of both companies was halted before the announcement.
CapitaLand, which owns 65.3 per cent of CapitaMalls, carved out the unit and sold shares in 2009, raising S$2.8 billion.
CapitaMalls Asia owned 105 shopping malls valued at S$34.3 billion as at December 31, the company said in a presentation in March.
The mall owner reported a 17 per cent increase in fourth-quarter profit to S$216.4 million from a year earlier.
CapitaMalls Asia holds S$1 billion in cash with a net gearing of 22 per cent, according to a February 14 report from OCBC Investment Research. — Bloomberg
