Century Logistics announces corporate exercises

PETALING JAYA: Century Logistics Holdings Bhd, which Felda Global Ventures Holdings Bhd’s (FGV) planned to acquire a stake in, has announced some corporate exercises to enhance trading liquidity and the marketability of its shares.

The group’s filing with Bursa Malaysia yesterday detailed its proposed bonus issue, share split and other amendments to facilitate the share split.

The logistics group announced a proposed bonus issue of up to 61,032,148 new ordinary shares of RM1 each on the basis of one bonus share for every two existing Century Logistics shares held on an entitlement date to be determined later. The bonus issue would enable shareholders to have greater participation in the equity of the company whilst maintaining their percentage of equity interest.

The share split was expected to adjust the market price of Century’s ordinary shares and would result in the subdivided shares being more affordable which would enable a wider group of investors to participate in the growth of the company.

“However, there will be a corresponding dilution in the earnings per share of the Century group upon the completion of the corporate exercises as a result of the increase in the number of ordinary shares of Century,” the group said.Both the proposed bonus issue and share split are not expected to have any material effect on the earnings of the group for the financial year ending Dec 31, 2014.

In March, it was reported that FGV was exploring options to unlock the value of its logistics arm by injecting the division into either a listed or unlisted entity.

Century Logistics was noted as one of the companies that the plantation group was exploring to undertake the exercise.

A source close to FGV had said the proposal was for FGV to inject its logistics arm in return for new shares, not to buy out the interest of existing shareholders.

It was reported that the Felda group was in talks to acquire a significant stake in Century Logistics, possibly from its largest shareholder, Datuk Richard Phua, who has a 26.4% stake in the company.

Century Logistics had confirmed that it was exploring a potential corporate exercise with the Felda group, although nothing conclusive was agreed upon at that point. There had been no update on the exercise from both the companies since then.