This article first appeared in Capital, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on March 1, 2021 - March 7, 2021

NOTABLE shareholding changes between Feb 15 and 19 included that of private equity fund Creador founder and CEO Brahmal Vasudevan re-emerging as a substantial shareholder of oil and gas firm Uzma Bhd. He crossed the 5% substantial shareholding threshold following the purchase of 6.5 million shares from the open market on Feb 17, raising his direct and indirect interest to 21.5 million shares or 6.17%.

Filings show that he previously emerged as a substantial shareholder in Uzma on April 3 last year, mopping up shares that had plummeted as oil price languished, but he ceased to be a substantial shareholder after selling two million shares on Dec 11.

Over at Spritzer Bhd, filings show the emergence of Cayman Islands-incepted Dymon Asia (SEAsia) II Ltd as a substantial shareholder on Feb 9. The fund’s 30.5% deemed interest in Spritzer was pursuant to the completion of a share swap exercise entered into by its unit, Langit Makmur Sdn Bhd, with Datuk Lim A Heng @ Lim Kok Cheong, founder and executive chairman of Yee Lee Corp Bhd, and his family. The latter parties had in 2019 attempted to privatise Yee Lee, whose assets include the stake in Spritzer. Yee Lee was delisted on July 9 last year even though the offerors did not get a 100% stake.

Closing at RM1.95 on Feb 24, shares of Pimpinan Ehsan Bhd (PEB) have nearly tripled over one month and are hovering at their highest levels since June 2018.

On Feb 19, the Main Market-listed cash company, previously known as Triplc Bhd, announced that it had entered into a heads of agreement with renewable energy company reNIKOLA Sdn Bhd, Boumhidi Abdelali and YAM Tengku Zaiton Sultan Abu Bakar to become a renewable energy asset owner and operator by acquiring the reNIKOLA group of companies at a price “to be agreed at a later date” via the issuance of new PEB shares at RM1.07 apiece.

The issue price of RM1.07 had taken into consideration the price paid by Pitahaya (M) Sdn Bhd for its controlling stake of about 37.4% in PEB on Feb 19 that triggered a mandatory general offer (MGO), in which Lim Beng Guan is deemed as the ultimate offeror. Stock exchange filings show Lim’s emergence as a substantial shareholder of PEB and the cessation of PEB chairman Tan Sri Rozali Ismail as a substantial shareholder.

PEB, which had RM70.3 million cash as at end-September 2020, became a cash company in May 2018 after selling TRIplc to Puncak Niaga Holdings Bhd for RM210 million cash, of which RM134.8 million was paid to shareholders as special dividend. If completed, PEB would have approximately 418MWp capacity of solar assets across four sites in Kedah, Pahang and Perlis. Approvals from regulators and shareholders will be required once a sale and purchase agreement is signed.

Meanwhile, shares of AirAsia Group Bhd were reinvigorated by news that Stanley Choi Chiu Fai — a Hong Kong businessman and well-known poker player — had taken up a block of placement shares in the low-cost carrier. Choi bought 167.1 million shares on Feb 18 via British Virgin Islands-incepted Positive Boom Ltd, lifting his indirect holdings to 332.5 million shares or 8.96%, stock exchange filings show.

While AirAsia shares gave up some earlier gains as it closed at 90.5 sen on Feb 24, Choi’s bet is still in the money, given that the first tranche of 369.85 million placement shares listed on Feb 19 were issued at 67.5 sen each. AirAsia, which had been hard-hit by the pandemic along with the rest of the travel industry, plans to issue up to 669.4 million shares or 20% of its share base for working capital. On Feb 24, the company said it recognised RM299.34 million losses in the second half of 2020 from loan write-offs as a result of the commencement of bankruptcy proceedings for its associate, AirAsia Japan Co Ltd.

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