Court drops Kulim bid

 KULIM (Malaysia) Berhad’s bid to buy more shares from New Britain Palm Oil (NBPOL) was restricted by National Court last Wednesday. 

Acting chairman of Securities Commission Papua New Guinea Alex Tongayu announced that the National Court dismissed an appeal filed by Kulim challenging the orders of the Securities Commission blocking Kulim’s partial takeover of NBPOL on the grounds of “national interest”. 

Tongayu said the court noted that the entire appeal filed by Kulim was incompetent and had no basis in law.

“This is a major victory for the country and small Papua New Guinean shareholders of NBPOL where the Securities Commission of Papua New Guinea for the first time in the history of this country blocked a takeover in the national interest,” Tongayu said. 

The whole takeover was worth K580.99 million.

Kulim had recently commenced legal proceedings against SCPNG, after the latter stopped the long-time major shareholder from increasing itsinterest in NBPOL on Aug 20.

In a filing to the stock exchange, Kulim said its application was dismissed by the National Court on Wednesday.

As such, Kulim was unable to declare the partial offer unconditionaland the partial offer has since lapsed,” Kulim said.

The company said that all acceptances received pursuant to the partialoffer were automatically void as outlined under Section 11.4 of the offerdocument dated July 23, 2013, and would be returned to the respectiveshareholders of NBPOL.

Kulim had in June launched a partial general offer for the shares in NBPOL, a large palm oil producer in PNG.

However, on Aug 27,  the minister for Trade, Commerce and Industry had approved an amendment to the PNG code enabling the SCPNG to prevent the takeover of a company under its jurisdiction where the SCPNG deemed such takeover to be contrary to the national interests of PNG.

The move of the ministry enabled SCPNG the powers to prevent the takeover of a company under its jurisdiction.

As of Aug 28, Kulim had received acceptance for 4.9 million shares or approximately 3.26% of NBPOL. 

The idea was for Kulim to raise its shareholding in NBPOL by 20% to 68.97%. 

Kulim, a subsidiary of Johor Corp (Jcorp) is the largest shareholder with 48.97% stake in the London plantation company.