SINGAPORE - Cosco Shipping International on Friday (Nov 3) made a voluntary conditional cash offer to acquire all the issued ordinary shares of Cogent Holdings Limited for a sum of S$488.07 million.

The offer price is at S$1.02 per share, a premium of about 5.2 per cent over the last transacted price of S$0.970 per share on Nov 2. The company has no intention to revise the offer.

The aggregate number of Cogent Holdings shares held by the four undertaking shareholders - Tan Yeow Khoon; Tan Yeow Lam; Tan Min Cheow, Benson; and Ng Poh Choo - amount to 403.5 million shares, representing about 84.33 per cent of all Cogent shares in issue.

Cosco does not intend to maintain the listing status of Cogent and intends to exercise the right to compulsorily acquire, at the offer price, all the Cogent shares of shareholders who have not accepted.

The acquisition of Cogent shares will be funded by way of internal cash resources and bank borrowings. In this regard, Cosco Shipping has entered into a commitment letter for a loan facility of up to S$350 million from Bank of China to partially fund acceptances under the offer.

The rationale for the acquisition is to acquire control in one of Singapore's leading full service, integrated logistics service providers with a track record of over 40 years, said Cosco Shipping. It expects to leverage its holding company China Cosco's existing logistics business platform to potentially develop new business opportunities in the logistics sector in South-east Asia, taking advantage of the "Belt and Road Initiative".

Cosco will also be able to offer end-to-end services to its customers with logistical needs in Singapore and Malaysia, said the company.