Asiabest Group tender offer at P2.552/share

Asiabest Group [ABG suspended] [link] notified the exchange that Premiumlands Corp. (PLC) and Industrial Holdings and Development Corp. (IHDC) would conduct a tender offer to acquire up to 100,000,000 common shares of ABG. That’s 33.33% of the company’s outstanding shares, which is the entirety of its public float. PLC and IHDC will pay P2.552/share, and the tender offer period will run from 10 March 2025 through to 7 April 2025. Both PLC and IHDC are owned by Francis Lloyd Chua, who purchased a controlling interest in ABG from Tiger Resort Asia Limited (TRAL) back in December. PLC purchased the ABG shares from TRAL for P2.552/share.     

MB bottom-line: So this is maybe going to hurt people who bought ABG to front-run a potential juicy tender offer. ABG hasn’t traded since it was suspended on December 16, and the last price before the suspension was P26.20. While it’s true that ABG has never traded as low as P2.552/share, and the last time it traded even close to P3.00/share was over a year ago, the price that PLC paid for its shares from TRAL is the theoretical minimum that PLC needs to offer. That’s not the only consideration, though, and this is only a disclosure about PLC’s intent to conduct a tender offer. Remember, this isn’t a case that is governed by the voluntary delisting rules, so those who fail to tender their shares are not choosing a life of cumbersome uncertainty; the ABG shares they own will still (as of my knowledge of PLC’s intent) remain tradeable on the PSE at whatever the market price will be. Mr. Chua will need to submit a Tender Offer Report with the final terms for any of this to be reliable information, but at least for know, they’re using the TRAL transaction price as the baseline, and that’s probably not great news for people who hoped to make a quick flip.

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