Thai billionaire Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi extended a deadline for a US$7.3 billion ($8.9 billion) offer for Fraser & Neave to a day before a higher bid from a group led by Overseas Union Enterprise is due to close.
Charoen’s TCC Assets will extend the closing date on its $8.88 offer for the property and beverages conglomerate a fourth time to Jan. 2, according to a stock exchange statement today. The OUE-led group on Nov. 15 topped his bid with a $9.08 offer that closes Jan. 3.
Taking over the conglomerate’s soft-drink and real-estate businesses would help Charoen expand his Thai businesses in Asia. The billionaire agreed to buy a stake in the drinks and property company in July, setting off a race to buy its assets.
F&N shares fell 0.5% to $9.40 at 9:29 a.m. in Singapore trading today.
OUE has enlisted Kirin Holdings Co., Japan’s largest drinks maker and F&N’s second-largest shareholder, in its bid. OUE would get the company’s property business and Kirin would take the food and beverage unit.
Kirin, which has a 14.8% stake in F&N, has agreed to tender its shares and won’t accept any competing bid, said OUE, a property affiliate of Indonesia-based Lippo Group. The Japanese brewer, Asia’s biggest beverage maker, will offer $2.7 billion for F&N’s food and beverage business, if OUE wins enough support to complete the takeover.
F&N has said it had committed to pay the OUE consortium a break-up fee of as much as $50 million if a competing offer is successful.
Charoen’s Thai Beverage Pcl, the largest shareholder in F&N, were unchanged in Singapore today.
“NOT COMPELLING”
Charoen, 68, failed to win support for his $8.88 a share bid from F&N’s board, which has said an independent adviser found that offer ‘‘not compelling, though fair.”
His unlisted business, TCC Group, has a real estate unit. Thai Beverage, which sells the Chang brand of beer, gets almost all its revenue from its home market.
Charoen’s net worth is US$8.5 billion, according to data compiled and calculated through the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
OUE Executive Chairman Stephen Riady is a son of Mochtar Riady, who controls Indonesia’s Lippo Group, with businesses ranging from real estate and financial services to food across Asia.
OUE, which gets about 65% of its revenue from hotel operations, is planning at least one investment a year in Singapore to boost property holdings that include office towers, luxury apartments and malls, Stephen Riady said in an interview in August.
Heineken NV won control of F&N’s beer unit, the maker of Tiger beer, in a deal that closed in November.
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