KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 12): SMRT Holdings Bhd and Creador II LLC have proposed to jointly acquire a 30.75% stake in Masterskill Education Group Bhd and subsequently launch a take-over for the remaining stake in the firm.

Creador founder and CEO Brahmal Vasudevan said education entity SMRT and private equity firm Creador had proposed to buy the 30.75% stake in Masterskill from major shareholder Siva Kumar M Jeyapalan at 60 sen a share.

SMRT and Creador have entered into a share sale agreement with Siva Kumar for the transaction. The agreement was entered into via SMRT's subsidiary Strategic Ambience Sdn Bhd and Creador's unit Arenga Pinnata Sdn Bhd.

Creador has also made a conditional take-over offer for the remaining Masterkill shares not held by the company at 60 sen a share. Creador intends to maintain the listing status of Masterkill.

"We plan to rename the company (Masterskill) as Asiamet Education Group Bhd.

"Our goal is to to focus on building a new chapter and bring new life into the company with the objective of rebuilding Asia Metropolitan University into a leading educational institution in Malaysia," Brahmal said.

Under the share sale agreement with  Siva Kumar, Creador will acquire a 7.75% stake in Masterskill from him.

The remaining 23% will be taken up by SMRT.

Last Thursday (Jan 8), Creador emerged as a major shareholder in Masterskill after acquiring 19.26% in Masterskill.

On Friday, Masterskill said its share trade would be suspended from 4.50pm that day (Jan 9)
till 5pm today (Jan 12) pending a a material announcement.

Prior to the suspension, Masterskill shares were last traded at 71 sen for a market capitalisation of RM376.1 million.