The independent financial adviser to SingLand's independent director has stood by its assessment of a general offer for the company made by its parent United Industrial Corp (UIC).
UIC's offer of $9.40 per share for SingLand is still fair and reasonable from a financial point of view, ANZ said last Friday.
It said this in response to a query from the Singapore Exchange (SGX) on its evaluation of the offer.
SingLand's second-largest shareholder Silchester International Investors, which had held 8.16 per cent of SingLand shares, said last Monday that UIC's offer was too low.
The SGX asked last Friday whether ANZ had taken into account the fact that the offer price was 33.1 per cent lower than SingLand's net tangible assets (NTA) per share of $14.04.
That figure includes the fair market value of SingLand's stake in three hotels - The Pan Pacific Hotel Singapore, The Marina Mandarin Singapore and Mandarin Oriental Singapore.
ANZ replied that the 33.1 per discount to NTA was within the range of SingLand's peer group.
It added that performing an NTA comparison with Sing- Land's peer group was sufficient and it did not need to also do a comparison based on revalued net asset value (RNAV).
This is because a high proportion of SingLand's properties was factored in at fair market value in its report, it said.
However, it went on to do a RNAV comparison anyway and noted that UIC's offer price was 31 per cent lower than SingLand's RNAV of $13.72 per share. In comparison, SingLand's peers had a bigger discount to RNAV on average, at 43 per cent.
