China’s HNA makes bid for Singapore logistics firm CWT

HNA
HNA Group HQ

HONG KONG (Reuters) – China’s HNA Holding Group Co. said it would make an offer to acquire Singapore-listed logistics firm CWT Ltd for $1 billion.

The Chinese conglomerate said in a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange late on Sunday that its subsidiary HNA Belt and Road Investments (Singapore) Pte. Ltd would offer to purchase 600 million CWT shares at S$2.33 apiece, which values the deal at S$1.399 ($0.9962) billion.

Reuters reported in May 2016 citing sources that HNA Group was in talks to acquire CWT for $1 billion.

HNA, one of China’s most acquisitive conglomerates with businesses spanning aviation to financial services, has been snapping up assets overseas.

CWT, incorporated in 1970 as a private arm of the Port of Singapore Authority, has interests which include logistics services, commodity marketing, financial services and engineering services.

The offer represents a 13.11 percent premium over CWT’s last traded price of S$2.06 on Wednesday. HNA said in the filing that it intended to keep CWT’s management team.

It said the acquisition would help it to leverage an established international platform, become a leading logistics player and diversify its property investment portfolio.

($1 = 1.4043 Singapore dollars)

(Reporting by Sijia Jiang. Editing by Jane Merriman)

Be the first to comment

What do you think?

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.