His interest in Yangzijiang started about a year after the shipbuilder went public on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) on Apr 16, 2007, raising $624.1 million. The shares, offered at 95 cents each, were oversubscribed by 39 times, pushing its debut trading price up to $1.35. Amid the wave of investors’ interest, Yangzijiang’s share price hit a peak of around $2.70 in October 2007 but when the Global Financial Crisis struck soon after, it dropped to around 30 cents in October 2008.
The honorary chairman of Yangzijiang Shipbuilding brought the company to list on SGX back in 2007. Fifteen years later, the self-styled “old soldier” is taking personal charge of an investment spinoff
Fifty-five-year-old Lim Ah Seng has been holding shares of Yangzijiang Shipbuilding (Holdings) from the time he started investing. The former engineer at an offshore marine company recalls scooping up shares in the company shortly after his work brought him to China in 2008. “Everybody there has heard of Yangzijiang,” he tells The Edge Singapore. “The company is really big and has operations across China. I heard they even got orders from abroad, so I thought it was good for me to put my money in it,” he adds.
