Redefine Income Fund Limited has noted the offer made by the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) to acquire all the linked units in CBS Property Portfolio Limited other than the 13.1% already held by the PIC. The offer made on 22 March 2007 requires that the PIC will own not less than 50.01% of the linked units in issue on implementation date.
“At first glance, the offer made by PIC to acquire CBS appears to be an attractive option for unitholders,” comments Brian Azizollahoff, Redefine Income Fund CEO. “In the event of Redefine accepting this offer, Redefine would be making a substantial capital profit on its holdings in CBS. That said, we must still consider it very carefully, as Redefine is in the same position as a number of the large investors in the sector that have expressed disfavour with taking cash in exchange for listed units. There are constraints as to where one can invest cash. It is already difficult to find sizeable quantities of listed stock, so a number of investors are sitting with cash piles that are not being ideally utilised.
“Further, a number of unitholders, including those who concur with the previous comment, have intimated that they are not supportive of seeing a contraction of the number of counters available in and market capitalisation of the sector. As such, a transaction of this nature is not advantageous to investors in the sector.”
A bid by Redefine Income Fund to acquire CBS has been the source of market speculation for some time. “Whilst we are disappointed that this property acquisition did not come to fruition from our side, Redefine is reviewing the offer and, as always, will act in the best interests of its unitholders.” Redefine owns just over 10% of the CBS linked units in issue.