Way of life (1212), the operator of Sogo, is proposing to denationalise the corporate for HK$5 per share, or a 50 % premium from its final buying and selling worth, in a suggestion price of HK$1.88 billion.
Its share worth was at HK$3.08 earlier than buying and selling was suspended after a bounce of greater than 10 %.
In the meantime, the share worth of Way of life China (2136) additionally climbed sharply by 16.7 % to HK$0.91 on August 5.
Its main shareholder, Thomas Lau Luen-hung has obtained a stake of about 74.97 % within the firm since April 2019 amid suspicions that he was planning a privatization.
Lau and the late New World boss Cheng Yu-tung labored collectively to checklist the corporate in 2004.
Nonetheless, from 2014 to 2018, Lau and Cheng went their very own separate methods, with Cheng’s shares taken over by Qatar Funding Authority and Lau turning into the most important shareholder.
The Qatar company offered all its shares in March 2018, and Lau secretly purchased them.
Nonetheless, the 2019 social unrest and the pandemic that ensued the yr after that worsened the retail market, inflicting the corporate’s share worth to fall sharply.
From a historic excessive of HK$14.28 in April 2019, the worth had fallen almost 80 % by Friday.
So the price of going non-public for Lau is far decrease than it was just a few years in the past.
In 2021, his brother, Joseph Lau Luen-hung, and his partner proposed to denationalise China Estates (0127) at HK$4 per share however didn’t safe shareholder approval.
