SINGAPORE (Nov 4): The Quek family, which controls GuocoLand, has increased its stake in the property developer following two off-market purchases. On Oct 29, GuocoLand Assets bought 17,141,975 shares at an average price of $2.05 per share. The following day, it bought another 1,333,333 shares at the same price. The identity of the seller has yet to be disclosed.
These purchases bring GuocoLand Assets’ stake in GuocoLand to 790,507,734 shares, or 66.8%, from 65.2% previously. GuocoLand Assets is wholly-owned by Guoco Group, which in turn holds the Quek family’s stake in GuocoLand.
Following these purchases, Quek Leng Chan, the non-independent, non-executive director of GuocoLand, has increased his total stake consisting of both direct and deemed shares to 849,785,738 shares, or 71.81%.
The purchase price of $2.05 is a substantial discount to the company’s book value. As at Sept 30, GuocoLand’s net asset value (NAV) was $3.47 per share, up slightly from $3.45 as at June 30.
For 1QFY2020 ended Sept 30, 2019, the company’s revenue increased 62% y-o-y to $272.5 million. Earnings rose 61% y-o-y to $41 million. The company attributes the better numbers to a higher progressive recognition of sales from Martin Modern, one of its residential projects. Contributions from associates and joint ventures, however, dropped $7.5 million to $6 million in the same period.
On Oct 1, GuocoLand announced more details of its upcoming Guoco Midtown mixed development on Beach Road, which is a combination of two adjacent sites. The sites cover 3.2ha and can yield a total gross floor area of nearly 1.5 million sq ft. Guoco Midtown includes a 33-storey residential tower comprising 219 one- to three-bedroom units, with sizes ranging from 409 sq ft to 1,324 sq ft. The project is slated for completion in the first half of 2022.
The Queks were not the only insiders of a property developer buying their own shares last week. Albert Teo Hock Chuan, CEO of Amara Holdings, bought 970,300 shares via a married deal on Oct 24. He paid a total of $441,486.50, which works out to an average price of 45.5 cents per share. The identity of the seller was not disclosed. With this purchase, Teo’s deemed and direct interest in Amara Holdings has grown to 189,259,694 shares. He now owns 32.92% of the company, up from 32.75% previously.
For 2Q ended June 30, Amara Holdings reported revenue of $24.7 million, down 4% y-o-y. However, earnings increased 49% y-o-y to $1.6 million, helped partly by favourable foreign exchange movements.
As with many other property plays, Amara is trading at a substantial discount to its book value. As at June 30, 2019, its NAV was 66.89 cents per share, down from 69.46 cents as at Dec 31, 2018.
Insider moves
