SINGAPORE - A general offer by Perennial Real Estate Holdings and Yanlord Group for the ordinary shares of United Engineers that they don't already own has lapsed after it saw few takers.

At the close of offer on Sept 19 which has already been extended twice, valid acceptances for the offer of ordinary shares amounted to a mere 1.36 per cent of the issued capital.

The resultant shareholding for the offeror came up to 34.8 per cent, a slight nudge up from the 33.43 per cent held by the Perennial-Yanlord consortium before the offer was made.

For the offer to be unconditional, the aggregate holding by the offeror must cross the 50 per cent mark.

Since it fell way short, the ordinary share offer has lapsed. Shareholders who have accepted the offer will have their shares returned to them.

The preference share offer, on the other hand, succeeded as valid acceptances, together with the stake held by the offeror, totalled 97.17 per cent by the close of offer.

The consortium had offered S$2.60 for each ordinary share and S$2.60 for each preference share of United Engineers.

However, the offer had been stymied by Oxley Holdings and related parties, which amassed a stake of 15.1 per cent in United Engineers from virtually nothing when the offer was first made.

Oxley's latest disclosure of substantial shareholding showed that it last bought United Engineers ordinary shares at S$2.72 apiece on Sept 12.

United Engineers shares today eased one cent to close at S$2.72.