CWT rose 4 cents, or 1.9%, to $2.15 in early morning trade today after the company said that its offeror is scheduled to hold a general meeting between end of Aug 2017 and early Sept.
The meeting about a month away is to seek the approval of shareholders of HNA Holding Group for its subsidiary to acquire CWT for $2.33 a share.
Two major shareholders of HNA with a combined stake of 66.8% have given undertakings to vote in favour of the acquisition.
HNA Belt & Road Investments is a wholly-owned subsidiary of HNA Holding Group listed in Hong Kong.
The offeror intends to make CWT its wholly-owned subsidiary and does not intend to preserve its listing status.
The general meeting is one of two remaining pre-conditions for the takeover offer made in April 2017, valuing CWT at $1.4 billion.
The other remaining pre-condition is there being no material adverse effect in relation to CWT’s fundamentals.
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On 11 July 2017, OCBC Investment Research analyst Eugene Chua said in a report: "While it seems a step closer to a VGO (voluntary general offer) materializing, we advise investors to stay cautious as China banking regulator was also recently reported to be probing into overseas loans made to HNA Group, which we believe creates uncertainty over whether the deal will go through.
"HNA stated that in the event external financing is not available, it will finance the acquisition solely through an interest-free unsecured fund to be provided by HNA Group’s associates."
His fair value estimate of CWT without the deal is $1.95.
See CWT's announcement here.
