{"id":39779,"date":"2017-01-06T09:30:41","date_gmt":"2017-01-06T02:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/owners-of-united-engineers-said-to-be-mulling-sale\/"},"modified":"2017-01-06T11:07:37","modified_gmt":"2017-01-06T04:07:37","slug":"owners-of-united-engineers-said-to-be-mulling-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/owners-of-united-engineers-said-to-be-mulling-sale\/","title":{"rendered":"Owners of United Engineers said to be mulling sale"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nUEL\u2019s large portfolio of properties includes shopping centres, hotels and condominiums. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
\nThe biggest stakeholders of United Engineers Limited (UEL), which has a market capitalisation of $1.7 billion, have officially begun evaluating buyer interest in the 105-year-old Singapore property conglomerate, reported Bloomberg, citing sources privy to the matter.
\nLast September, the firm\u2019s major shareholders comprising Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) and its insurance arm Great Eastern Holdings announced that they were assessing strategic options for their collective stake in UEL.
\nIn October, developer OUE confirmed reports that UEL approached it regarding a possible share buyout, but said it wasn\u2019t involved in any discussions, according to a Straits Times report.
\nSince December 2016, UEL\u2019s largest owners have been disclosing financial information regarding the company to would-be bidders. At least 10 entities, including property funds, private equity firms and regional real estate players, are keen to purchase the company, said insiders who requested anonymity as the discussions remain private.
\nOn Thursday (5 January), OCBC and Great Eastern said in a joint SGX filing that they had appointed Credit Suisse as an advisor on the strategic review of their shareholdings in UEL. The process is ongoing, but it is uncertain whether this will lead to a transaction.
\nDeadline for the first-round of bids closes on the last day of January, and UEL\u2019s share price increased by up to 4.3 percent yesterday, the highest intraday increase in almost three weeks before trading was stopped.
\nIn recent years, UEL had been disposing non-core assets, including stakes in a Singapore luxury car dealer, a steel fabrication business in Indonesia, and property management companies in China.
\nIts existing property holdings include the mixed-use project UE BizHub City, Singapore shopping centres Rochester Mall and Seletar Mall, as well as hotels, condominiums and serviced apartments.
\n\u201cThe reported keen bidding for this portfolio is not surprising,\u201d Priyaranjan Kumar, Cushman & Wakefield\u2019s Regional Executive Director of Capital Markets, wrote in an email.
\n\u201cOne would expect pricing to reflect a premium to book value, given the strategic value of the assets and the significant time and risk that anyone would otherwise take to replicate a portfolio of this size in Singapore,\u201d he added.
\nGreat Eastern, OCBC, and the latter\u2019s founding Lee family collectively hold a 30 percent stake in UEL. Buying their stakes would result in a mandatory takeover of the rest of the shares based on Singapore rules.
\n\u00a0
\nRomesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories, email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
\n
\nSource : proppertyguru.com.sg\/Property Market
\nRead more…Owners of United Engineers said to be mulling sale<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UEL\u2019s large portfolio of properties includes shopping centres, hotels and condominiums. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons) The...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-property-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p75ss1-alB","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":43913,"url":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/singapore-firms-among-uels-shortlisted-bidders\/","url_meta":{"origin":39779,"position":0},"title":"Singapore firms among UEL\u2019s shortlisted bidders","date":"February 13, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\r UEL\u2019s large portfolio of properties includes shopping centres, hotels and condominiums. 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