KUALA LUMPUR: Paul Poh Yang Hong, said to be a long-time associate of tycoon Tan Sri Quek Leng Chan, has emerged as a substantial shareholder of Pelikan International Corp Bhd with a 5.18% stake.

A filing with Bursa Malaysia revealed that Poh last Friday bought 28.4 million Pelikan shares through his investment vehicle, Caprice Capital International Ltd, which was incorporated in the British Virgin Islands.

Poh, 41, was formerly a long-serving employee of the Hong Leong Group. He was the managing director of Guocoland (M) Bhd and his last position at Hong Leong was the managing director of Hong Leong Management Co Sdn Bhd.

He had also served in the group’s units Hume Industries (M) Bhd and Hong Leong Securities Sdn Bhd.

Poh left Hong Leong early this year to be more active in his investment vehicle Caprice Capital, which emerged as one of the cornerstone investors of UWM Oil and Gas Corp Bhd last year.

In June this year, Poh teamed up with Quek to buy a 13.57% stake in offshore supply vessels  player Alam Maritim Resources Bhd through a private placement exercise at RM1.35 apiece. The duo overtook Lembaga Tabung Haji as the second-largest shareholder of Alam Maritim. In July 2014, Pelikan announced a plan to inject its stationery business worth RM1.19 billion into its 70.9%-owned subsidiary Herlitz Aktiengesellschaft (Herlitz AG), listed in Frankfurt, Germany.

Pelikan is expected to raise RM491.3 million from the private placement and offer for sale of shares in Herlitz that it will receive, with part of the proceeds to be used to pare down the company’s debts.

The key stationery subsidiaries that will be injected are in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Mexico, Japan and the Middle East. Shares in Pelikan fell four sen to RM1.17 yesterday, giving it a market capitalisation of RM641.6 million.


This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on October 9, 2014.