Business

Saturday August 29, 2009

The dust finally settles, the battle for GBH is over

By FINTAN NG


PETALING JAYA: The shareholders’ tussle at little known Goh Ban Huat Bhd (GBH), a ceramic maker cum sanitaryware supplier, is over.

The company’s largest shareholder, Tan Sri Robert Tan Hua Choon, has finally gotten management control after raising his offer to RM1.50 per share on Aug 24 from his original offer of RM1.25 per share on June 25.

With the revised offer, he acquired another 11.23 million shares or 18.14% stake to bring his total stake to 53.53%.

Although Lembaga Tabung Angkatan Tentera (LTAT), which owns an 18.19% stake in GBH, has not publicly acknowledged that it was their stake that was acquired by Tan, sources with knowledge of the sale has identified the fund as the seller.

The company’s board of directors had a scheduled meeting on Thursday to approve the financial results for the quarter ended June 30 but members contacted by StarBizWeek did not have much to say about what had transpired in the meeting after Tan’s coup.

GBH, in a filing to Bursa Malaysia on Thursday also declared a net loss of RM4.96mil on revenue of RM7.33mil for the quarter ended June 30.

The company posted a net loss of RM2.39mil for the quarter ended Mar 31.

“We’ve been directed by the Securities Commission to take another look at the proposal and AmInvestment will release another circular to shareholders soon,” GBH group managing director Tony Goh said.

Goh’s family holds the next largest stake in GBH at 15.94% through Ceramtec Sdn Bhd and is opposed to the takeover while AmInvestment Bank Bhd was appointed by the company’s board as the independent advisor in relation to the offer.

A source close to Tan said any plans would only be made known after Sept 11, which is the new extension date for the revised offer.

LTAT was unavailable for comment after numerous attempts to contact them for a statement.

Analysts, however, are puzzled by LTAT’s sale as AmInvestment had on July 30 advised shareholders against taking up Tan’s original offer made on June 25 as it was too low.

Market sources said the LTAT decision to sell the GBH stake was based solely on a commercial basis.

“They do have good rapport with the Goh family,” the source said.

Before taking into consideration the revalued land in Jalan Segambut where the company’s operations are located, the net tangible asset per share stood at RM2.54.

AmInvestment said after the land revaluation, the net asset per share stood at RM2.92 with the land worth RM143mil from the previous valuation of RM119mil, which was done in 2004.

Property consultants have said before that the 14.8-acre mostly freehold parcel of land held future development potential due to its proximity to several main thoroughfares such as Jalan Kuching and Jalan Ipoh.

Both Tan and the Gohs, GBH’s founding family who have opposed his takeover plans from the beginning, have said they have plans to develop the land.

Tan, on several occasions in filings to Bursa Malaysia, had said the company’s real estate assets should not be sold to stem the losses it has been making in the past.

Tan had said he was “deeply concerned with the trend of losses” and that the company should not indirectly finance its past years’ losses with proceeds from the sale of properties. GBH has been making losses from the financial year ended (FYE) Dec 31, 2000 to FYE Dec 31, 2008 with the exception being FYE Dec 31, 2005.

As it is, part of the land has been secured towards a RM36mil term-loan facility the company took from Kenanga Investment Bank Bhd in January 2008, and which Tan feels may eventually be lost in a forced sale situation should the company continue to incur losses in the following years.

In addition, GBH has also sold a 10-acre freehold parcel to a company, FCW Holdings Bhd, in which Tan has a 25% stake.


GBH : [Stock Watch] [News]

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