Voluntary Conditional Cash Offer By ALF Global Private Ltd for Shares In Robinson And Company Limited

Singapore, 20 January 2008 – ALF Global Private Ltd. (“ALF Global” or the “Offeror”) has announced that it intends to make a voluntary conditional cash offer (the “Offer”) for all the shares in Robinson and Company Limited (“RCL” or the “Company”). ALF Global is incorporated for the purpose of making the Offer and is ultimately held by the Al-Futtaim Group (as defined below).

KEY HIGHLIGHTS
-Offer Price of S$6.25 per share
-Premium of 40.1% to last transacted price
-Irrevocable undertakings to accept the Offer received from institutional shareholders in respect of 23.18% stake
http://info.sgx.com/webcoranncatth.nsf/VwAttachments/Att_4450AA03D2B088EE482573D6002C67EA/$file/PressRelease_20Jan08_Final.pdf?openelement

My comments:

Interesting stuff. We have the 3rd offer since the start of the year! It just shows how smart institution investors are gearing up to take companies private in poor market conditions.

Back to Robinsons, well, I do have a small stake in this company and I had been a shareholder for around 5 years. Value investors who had been holding onto this company will be quite disappointed with their performance lately and their dividend cut during last financial year. The board changes since OCBC reduced their stake in this company also unsettle the company a bit.

Aberdeen Asset Management is among the institutions giving irrevocable undertakings for this offer. Interestingly, Aberdeen also holds Ascott and Straits Trading which are targets for takeover offers currently. It just shows us how value investing had been fruitful in current market situations.

Another obervation from me is that OCBC and Auric Pacific(controlled by Lippo Group) had been slient on this offer thus far. The offer can't go through if both rejects it. As I am also a shareholder of Auric Pacific and OCBC, it will be interesting for me to see what are their response on this offer.

The price, at 40% premiums looks ok to me. At least much better than Straits Trading, which is obviously a bad offer. But I will not sell if OCBC and Auric stays put since the offeror will not be able to take the company private. I will wait and see what happens before deciding.