Roughly a 10% gain for the offer price of RM3.18 from previous close of RM2.88. By far this isn’t the biggest gain we see from a takeover. We see an immediate gain of 20% from IGB then and this isn’t close to what we expect. At least they could have offered a price above  Not much premium to talk about here and this is why there’s a harsh reality when takeover happens giving your rubbish prices.

Pretty much around 3 quarters ago (Sep 2017), we see price dropping continuously and volume is still intact in a small range not to overly do the sell off or ignite somewhat any alert with huge spikes that bring in attention. The key here is to lower the price slow or slightly.

Why?

Days before the acquisition announcement turns official, we usually see volume and price spikes

This is the most common case since things tend to leak on the way to submission either its from the valuators, accountants or anyone dealing with the company. If you work in the HQ of Oldtown and see people walking in to your office every day, you can already tell that something is brewing (pun unintended; not coffee obviously) and words around office spread like wildfire,

That is why the lower the stock price goes before a trading halt is put into place, the bid price would seem to be giving more premium.

In the case of Oldtown, being such a big company has its cons where something like an acquisition involves a big group of people. More people knowing equals higher possibility of leak.

Lower last traded price = Lower acquisition price

Who doesn’t want to buy cheap?

Indeed there are cases where some acquisition can be planned over the course of few years because the main shareholders are huge and with the power to depress the price further.

It’s a major advantage where they can properly time the acquisition with the ideal price in favor of an expected huge rise in revenue or profit. Truly an unfair advantage but is likely going to happen only to smaller companies.

The next time you are buying a stock just because they have 50 – 70% of cash value, think again. Before you know it, they have the power to privatize and you are merely holding to a few thousand units which is not significant to make a difference.

This guy here… we still think that they list to get money and institutions are buying back at a cheaper price than listing.

More room for price revision

This is just in case, where if the acquisition fails to get through they could bid higher slowly rather than already paying the maximum that they can afford.

The Harsh Reality?

In our books, Oldtown is a very good counter with tonnes of growth ahead. If you bought Oldtown earlier hoping that their growth into China would make the stock a multi bagger returner, your hopes had been shortened and expected profits had been reduced by a huge fraction.

Fundamentally the company also has a very strong cash holding with little debt to cover. Another good factor to take into account where these could be consider a strong buffer for a company entering a new market increasing its risk exposure.

The offer price is definitely lower than the expected FY2019, FY2020 price at current PE. We expect FY2019 to be somewhere around RM3.50 a share (assuming all plans executed). There isn’t much you can do other than hoping for a price revision in the case where most shareholders reject the offer bid.

Probability of a Rejection?

Old Town International Sdn Bhd is the biggest shareholder with a whopping 40.99% in the latest annual report. Based on this shareholding, we can only conclude that the deal will likely go through as the Sdn Bhd itself might want to take it private as well.

Revenue and profit just started to stabilized and with such a rich cash holding (approx RM200 million) in their books, they have more than enough for the expansion in new markets. So why share with the public shareholders for the coming returns? Furthermore, the assets could sustain without increasing its debt exposure.

If the company requires funds to expand again, then it might list once more but until then this might be a good bye if you are very positive on making huge returns from OLDTOWN.

Like our page to get more these https://www.facebook.com/omightycap/
Make the next post easily visible from your Facebook!

You can visit us at http://omightycap.wordpress.com