Indonesian buys 24.9% stake in L&M

Indonesian buys 24.9% stake in L&M

SINGAPORE (Reuters): Indonesian businessman Edwin Soeryadjaya has taken a 24.9 percent controlling stake in specialist engineering group L&M Group Investments Ltd, a statement from L&M said yesterday.

Soeryadjaya bought 38.24 million L&M shares at S$0.50 each through Aragorn Assets Ltd (AAL), according to the statement issued to the Stock Exchange of Singapore.

The shares were bought from stockbroker Kim Eng Securities (Hong Kong) Ltd, which is part of Singapore stockbroker Kim Eng Holdings Ltd.

The 24.9 percent stake is just a shade below the 25 percent level that triggers a mandatory takeover.

L&M said it had not received any notice of takeover from AAL at this point of time.

L&M was controlled by a group of Indonesians, led by Johannes Kotjo and included Indonesian President Soeharto's son Bambang Trihatmodjo.

In October, the group entered an agreement with Soeryadjaya to make a reverse takeover of engineering and power group Van der Horst Ltd (VDH) by injecting a telecom company into VDH, and also to take over L&M via VDH.

Soeryadjaya also had a call option to buy 32.8 percent of L&M from Kotjo.

In late February, Soeryadjaya withdrew his offer for VDH.

According to the statement, the 24.9 percent L&M stake was part of Kotjo's block of shares subject to the call option. This option is now defunct.