The company’s plans to merge subsidiaries and assets into German unit Herlitz AG have been signed off.
Pelikan CEO Loo Hooi Keat
The Sun Daily reported on the approval of the plans first announced in July and elaborated on in November, with German unit Herlitz AG absorbing other subsidiaries and assets for €231.2 million ($283.9 million) and Pelikan receiving in return 231.2 million new shares in Herlitz.
The value is representative of a discount of €18 million ($22 million) or 7.2 percent on PriceWaterhouseCoopers’ valuation of €249.2 million ($310.5 million), with assets involved including Pelikan’s stationery business subsidiaries in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, Japan, the Middle East, Mexico, Colombia and Argentina, as well as its logistics property.
The assets cumulatively generated a turnover of RM 1.016 billion ($292.1 million/€237.8 million), representing 70.5 percent of the group’s turnover for the 2013 financial year, and the plan also includes a proposed issue of 32.9 million new shares in Herlitz at €1 ($0.81) and a sale of 60 million Herlitz shares at a minimum of €1 each. It will also aim to reduce Pelikan International’s cash per share to RM1 ($0.28/€0.23) from 22 sen ($0.06/€0.05).
Loo Hooi Keat, Pelikan’s President and CEO, added after the announcement that “the group is expected to raise RM390 million ($116 million/€93 million) and realise an estimated gain of RM130 million upon the completion of the proposed scheme”.