Friday 29 Mar 2024
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This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on April 7, 2020

KUALA LUMPUR: Private equity firm Creador Sdn Bhd is buying into GHL Systems Bhd and Uzma Bhd.

A filing with Bursa Malaysia yesterday showed Parantaka Ltd, in which Creador has a deemed interest, on April 2 and 3 bought a total of 1.77 million shares or a 0.23% stake in GHL. Creador subsequently raised its stake to 12.83% or 96.1 million shares.

Creador has been accumulating shares in the payment service provider and merchant acquirer since end-February.

To recap, Creador first emerged as a substantial shareholder of GHL on Feb 26 after acquiring some 46.18 million shares. This increased its shares to some 49.9 million or a 6.66% stake.

In March 2017, Creador exited GHL after disposing of its 28.3% stake to a global investment firm Actis Capital, which emerged as the new major shareholder of GHL after acquiring a 44.45% stake in GHL. Actis bought the stakes at RM1 per share — a 16% discount to GHL’s then price of RM1.19.

Since Creador’s exit at end-March 2017, GHL’s market capitalisation has expanded 74% to RM1.2 billion.

The Edge Malaysia weekly, in its latest edition, quoted Creador founder and chief executive officer Brahmal Vasudevan as saying the equity firm did not buy GHL shares “cheap”.

“We paid an average of RM1.70 per share for our current shareholding in GHL today,” Brahmal told the weekly.

“We have invested RM170 million to acquire GHL shares. This is a reinvestment. We were investors from 2014 to 2017. What we see is the electronic payments industry continuing to explode since our exit and we want to be part of this continued shift to digital from cash,” he said.

Brahmal also emerged as a substantial shareholder of Uzma on April 3, after acquiring some one million shares or a 0.3% stake on the open market.

According to a Bursa filing, he owns a direct interest of 3.91% or 12.5 million shares and an indirect interest of 1.25% or four million shares in the oil and gas company, emerging as its largest shareholder.

Uzma shares closed 10 sen or 19.23% higher at 62 sen yesterday, valuing the group at RM198.42 million. Year to date, the counter has fallen some 36.08% in line with the oil price crash.

GHL has escaped the equity rout, gaining some 19% during the same period. The counter settled one sen or 0.63% higher at RM1.61 yesterday.
 

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