Salim to take over QAF

Salim to take over QAF

SINGAPORE (Reuter): Indonesia's Salim group said yesterday it has made a conditional takeover offer for bread company, QAF Ltd, after the exercise of call options for QAF shares and the purchase of more shares.

The Salim group, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Qualif Pte Ltd, a subsidiary of its Singapore investment arm KMP Pte Ltd, is offering S$2 per share and $1.10 per warrant for the shares and warrants it does not already own.

The mandatory takeover offer was triggered after Qualif's exercise of its call option agreement to buy 25 million QAF shares at Singapore $1.93 each and 2.5 million warrants at Singapore $1.02 each on Tuesday, a company announcement said yesterday.

With the exercise of the share options and warrants, the Salim group now owns 104.97 million shares and 11.46 million warrants representing a 33.2 percent stake in QAF.

Under Singapore's rules on takeovers and mergers, a takeover offer has to be made if 25 percent ownership of a company has been reached.

Qualif said the takeover offer is conditional on the company receiving acceptances which will result in it carrying over 50 percent of the voting rights in QAF.

QAF shares were suspended on Tuesday at the company's request. Yesterday they were trading up S$0.05 at S$1.96.

KMP is wholly-owned by certain members of the Salim family, Liem Sioe Liong, Anthony Salim, Andree Halim and Mira Salim, the statement from Qualif said.