BANGKOK, Aug 18 – Singapore’s Cedar Holdings has sold 253.5 million shares or about 7.9 per cent of its Shin Corp shares, the Shin Corp-Thai telecom group said in a letter to the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET).
Sixty per cent of the shares were sold to Thai investors and 40 per cent were sold to Thai NVDR Co Ltd.
After the sale, Cedar holdings, 49 per cent owned by Singapore state-owned firm Temasek Holdings, now holds 1.488 billon shares or 46.44 per cent of Shin Corp.
Meanwhile, Aspen Holdings, which is owned by Temasek, holds another 41.68 per cent in Shin Corp, told Shin Corp that it has no plan to sell its shares in the company at the moment and it is still confident in the business and management of the company, the letter said.
Cedar Holdings Ltd sold 254 million Shin Corp shares at Bt36 each, for a total worth of Bt9.1 billion.
Singapore-based Temasek Holdings, a government-related corporation, bought Shin Corp, the family business of now fugitive ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006.
The telecommunications firm also owns Thaicom Pcl, founded in 1991 with a 30-year Build-Transfer-Operate concession from Thailand’s Ministry of Transport and Communications to operate the country’s first communications satellite. The concession expires in 2021.
The selling of Thaicom by the Shinawatra family in connection with the Shin Corp deal with the Singapore state-owned investment company was one factor triggering street demonstrations by anti-Thaksin protesters leading to the military coup in Sept 2006 that ousted Thaksin from power.
