Access to Article: GEM News 18 Global M&A 160819

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Buyouts/ Takeovers continued to be very active in 2018, notwithstanding the introduction of volatility in various markets. The wheeling and dealing has clustered around Technology, Healthcare and Business Services sectors, encompassing 68% of the total USD4.1 trillion in M&A values in 2018. Bristol Myers Squibb proposed USD74 billion acquisition of Celgene currently places it in pole position as the top M&A activity for 2019.

Singapore’s transaction volumes have remained relatively stable since 2016 to 2018, with an uptick in deal value seen in 2018. Close to 50% of Singapore delisting deals have been triggered by owners/management-led initiatives like the recent delisted Cityneon Holdings and Memtech International. There are also more private equity firms eyeing on Singapore buyout in these couple of years.

In this article, we highlight notable de-listing deals since 2014 in the four key sectors:

  1. Consumer
  2. Real Estate
  3. Logistics
  4. Manufacturing

Potential Candidates

There are various brokerage firms (RHB, DBS, KGI) who highlighted a few potential companies for privatisation.

We have also included a list of potential privatization candidates based on our own assessment that their key valuation metrics demonstrate signs of potential under-valuation. Some of these counters spot attractive dividend yields as high as 8.4%, which makes them ideal buy-and-hold candidates as we await a possible privatization conclusion.    

Will global political tensions, trade wars and turbulent markets ultimately derail the bullish global M&A trajectory seen over the past five years?