Tang Reshuffles Stake in OUE C-REIT as Chip Eng Seng Buyout Continues

Gordon Tang has sold a 1.02 percent interest in Singapore-listed OUE Commercial REIT to his mother and son, as the mainland billionaire and wife Celine continue to build their stake in developer Chip Eng Seng in a bid to take the company private.

On 30 December of last year, Tang unloaded more than 55.5 million units of OUE C-REIT that he held indirectly through his interest in a company called Gold Pot, according to a filing with the Singapore Exchange. The units were transferred to the personal accounts of his mother, Yang Chanzhen, and son, Tang Jialin.

After the transaction, Tang’s total unitholding in the trust fell to 7.27 percent as his son’s share rose from 5.07 to 6.08 percent, including a 0.16 percent stake held via the family’s Senz Holding vehicle.

Tang notified the SGX of the disposal one day before announcing that Tang Dynasty Treasure, the investment firm owned by the property power couple, and its concert parties had increased their shareholding in Chip Eng Seng to 69.36 percent, inching closer to the 90 percent threshold required to delist the 60-year-old company.

Relentless March

The Tangs’ latest moves come after the pair sweetened their take-private bid for Chip Eng Seng last month by upping their all-cash offer by three cents to S$0.75 per share.

The new price, which values the builder at more than S$588 million ($433.5 million), represents the final offer to be made by Tang Dynasty Treasure, barring a competitive situation in the future.

If successful, the takeover will mark the Tangs’ second SGX-listed company to be privatised in a little over a year, after they took full control of local builder SingHaiyi Group last January through an all-cash S$493 million deal.

The couple’s companies have been teaming up on major development projects in Singapore, including the 21 percent stake that Chip Eng Seng, SingHaiyi and Haiyi Holdings — an investment firm run by the couple — jointly own in a S$1.7 billion redevelopment project at 8 Shenton Way.

The buyout saga didn’t slow down Chip Eng Seng’s dealmaking in December. The company last month announced that it would sell an 84-key hotel and restaurant in Western Australia for A$18 million ($12.11 million) and acquire the remaining 30 percent stake it didn’t own in a Maldives five-star resort development project.

Raising Cash

The OUE C-REIT units sold by Gordon Tang are worth S$18.9 million ($14 million) at current market prices.

Sponsored by OUE Group, which is controlled by Indonesia’s Riady family, OUE C-REIT manages a S$5.8 billion portfolio spread across six office, retail and hospitality assets in Singapore, as well as the 91 percent stake it holds in a commercial building in Shanghai.

The trust’s latest business update showed revenue in the third quarter of 2022 inching up 1.7 percent year-on-year to S$59.5 million. Revenue from commercial properties rose by 2.4 percent to S$42.6 billion, while hotel revenue was unchanged at S$16.9 million.