KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 14): Shares in Daibochi Bhd declined as much as 13.07% or 26 sen in early trade today after Scientex Bhd announced plans to acquire 139.06 million shares or a 42.41% stake in the company for RM1.60 per share.

As at 9.50am, the counter had seen 302,200 shares traded and was the third largest decliner on Bursa Malaysia.

Scientex, on the other hand, was up 16 sen or 1.8% at RM8.83 per share. The counter had seen 71,900 shares crossed.

Yesterday, Scientex and Daibochi announced that they had entered into a heads of agreement to acquire the stake via a share swap, which would give Daibochi shareholders the option to swap 5.5 of their shares for one Scientex share.

MIDF Amanah Investment Bank Bhd Research placed Daibochi under review pending more details of the corporate exercise during an upcoming briefing tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Kenanga IB Research was “fairly positive” on the acquisition as it opined that the takeover would be synergistic in the long run, upgrading Scientex to market perform with a higher target price of RM8.50 from RM7.80.
However, “pricing is not overly attractive at 20 times (Daibochi’s) price-earnings ratio (PER),” Kenanga said in a quick take of the acquisition today.