As of Friday, Courts Asia has an issued and fully paid up share capital of $267.3 million, comprising 517.5 million shares with 42.5 million treasury shares. The offer values Courts Asia at stake $106 million.
Nojima Asia Pacific is the offer vehicle of sole shareholder Nojima Corp, a Tokyo-listed electrical appliance retail chain mainly dealing with the sale of consumer digital appliances, in Japan. It also has presence in Cambodia, where it specialises in digital appliances.
Nojima has a market capitalisation of $1.4 billion and revenues of $6.1 billion.
The offeror has been contemplating the entry into the consumer appliance retail market in Southeast Asia, where market growth is expected. With the acquisition of the Courts Asia, Nojima expects to gain a strong foothold in Southeast Asia.
The offeror also believes Courts Asia and its own business are complementary and there are potential synergies that can be created, adds PricewaterhouseCoopers Corporate Finance who drew up the offer document.
In addition, the trading volume of shares in Courts Asia has been generally low, with an average daily trading volume of approximately 208,346 shares during the 12-month period.
The offeror has received an undertaking from Singapore Retail Group, the 73.8% Courts Asia shareholder, to tender all of its 382 million shares in acceptance of the offer and not to accept or permit the acceptance of any competing offer.
