(Sept 13): If he were alive today, the rubber and pineapple king of 1930s Singapore would surely be asking whether the custodians of his empire just sold another chunk of it too cheaply.

That's the unavoidable conclusion from the drama surrounding the takeover of United Engineers, where a general offer is flirting with failure after the emergence of a rival buyer willing to pay more than the price accepted by Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp.

United Engineers, a property and construction engineering company, dates its origins to 1865 and was bought from its British owners by Lee Kong Chian, the plantations wizard who founded OCBC.

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