[SINGAPORE] Engineering company PEC has been delisted from the mainboard of the Singapore Exchange (SGX) as at 9 am on Thursday (Jun 19) after Alliance Energy Services’ offer to privatise the group via a scheme arrangement received shareholder approval in May.
The scheme consideration, which amounts to S$0.84 per share and comprises a payment of S$0.64 per share in cash and S$0.20 per share through a special cash dividend, became effective and binding on Jun 6. A bourse filing listed the scheme’s payment date as Jun 17.
The offeror, Alliance Energy Services, is a holding company that is majority-owned by Liberty Energy Solutions, an energy engineering solutions services provider that operates across North America, Asia and the Middle East. PEC’s chairman Edna Ko and chief executive officer Robert Dompeling have minority stakes in the offeror.
With the acquisition of PEC complete at a transaction value of US$165 million, Liberty Energy holds an 85 per cent stake in the company.
Liberty Energy is 97 per cent owned by ShawKwei & Partners, a private-equity fund manager that invests in industrial and service companies with revenues between US$50 million and US$800 million across Asia, Europe and the US. ShawKwei has funds under management of around US$1 billion and its Singapore portfolio now comprises PEC and precision manufacturing firm Beyonics.
Moving forward, PEC’s operational capabilities will be integrated with those of two Liberty Energy subsidiaries, said ShawKwei in a Thursday press statement.
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The companies are CR3 Group, a Bangkok-headquartered energy engineering solutions company, and ZymeFlow, a chemical decontamination technologies company based in Houston, Texas. Both are wholly owned by Liberty Energy.
The acquisition will accelerate Liberty Energy’s strategic development as a global platform for energy services, ShawKwei added.
Kyle Shaw, founder and managing partner of ShawKwei and chairman of Liberty Energy, noted that PEC is well-established in Singapore, where it has a “sizeable” market share. This would enable it to help bring ZymeFlow’s decontamination products and services to Singapore and expand the Houston-headquartered company’s presence in the city-state, he said.
Given that Singapore offers connectivity to energy industries in South-east Asia and countries in the region such as India, a “high-growth” market for energy services, PEC could leverage CR3’s well-established client base in the South Asian nation to take its products and services there, which will benefit both companies, Shaw added.
There is also opportunity for technological competence and know-how from Singapore to be exported to “high-growth” markets for energy services such as the Middle East, where PEC already has a presence, given that Singapore’s energy services industry is a relatively mature market, he said.
Management of PEC will continue under the leadership of Ko and Dompeling as they join Liberty Energy, the private-equity investor noted.
The offer
Citing PEC’s historically low trading liquidity, the offeror said in February that the acquisition presents shareholders a “compelling opportunity” to unlock value and realise their investment in the company’s shares at a premium over historical market prices.
This comes as the scheme reflects a 12.8 per cent premium over the counter’s last transacted price of S$0.745 on its last undisturbed trading day on Nov 26, 2024, before the company disclosed that a third party had approached it about a potential share deal on Nov 27, 2024.
The last day of trading for PEC shares was May 27 as the counter was suspended on May 28 with effect from 9 am.
