Asia Food is ready to take over Amcol

Asia Food is ready to take over Amcol

SINGAPORE (Reuter): Asia Food & Properties Ltd has received valid acceptances from holders of 98.6 percent of Amcol Holdings Ltd's share capital for Asia Food's takeover bid, the Overseas- Chinese Banking Corp (OCBC) said late on Friday.

OCBC said in a statement that Asia Food will compulsorily acquire any balance of shares after the close of the offer July 10.

Asia Food, which intends to list in Singapore, is offering four new Asia Food shares for every three Amcol shares and one Asia Food warrant for every 10 offer shares held.

Singapore $0.25 cents each for shares in trading firm Amcol.

Asia Food is a unit of PT Sinar Mas Tunggal which holds the food processing and distribution assets of Sinar Mas group, owned by the influential Indonesian Widjaja family.

Amcol was placed in judicial management on July 25, 1996 when the Singapore High Court agreed to an application made by three creditor banks -- OCBC, OUB Bank and the Bank of China -- after Amcol announced it faced severe cash flow difficulties and could not service its debts.

Price Waterhouse, appointed as the company's judicial manager, has said Amcol had liabilities of Singapore $1.6 billion as of May 31, 1996 and had total assets of S$1.55 billion.

Singapore's Business Times said on Saturday that Amcol had reported a S$324 million loss, including an extraordinary charge of S$245 million, for the year ended December 31, 1996, against a S$21 million profit for the 1995 financial year.