Singaporean billionaire’s Ho Bee Land sparks bidding war for Australia’s AVJennings

Billionaires

Ho Bee Land—controlled by Singaporean billionaire Chua Thian Poh—has offered to buy AVJennings in a deal valuing the Australian home builder at A$391 million ($242 million), sparking a bidding war with American real estate giant Proprium Capital Partners.
Metropolis
The Metropolis, one of the office buildings developed by Ho Bee Land in Singapore, houses the headquarters of the real estate company. (Ho Bee Land)

The Singapore-based developer, which has accumulated about 5.5% of AVJennings in recent months, offered to buy the rest of the Melbourne-based company for A$0.70 per share, pipping the A$0.67 per share offer by Propium and its Australian unit Avid Property. AVJennings jumped 7.8% to close at A$0.69.

“The proposed transaction represents a good opportunity for the group to enhance its scale and capabilities in Australia,” Ho Bee said in a statement. “The merged Australian business will have a stronger financial position, increased revenue potential and enhanced business capability to compete on a national level.”

While the value of AVJennings (which is majority owned by Singaporean tycoon Simon Cheong) has more than doubled since Propium made its offer in November, the stock is still trading below the A$0.81 per share net asset value of its portfolio, primarily a land bank on which about 10,000 homes can be built when fully developed.

Ho Bee Land has some S$7 billion ($5.1 billion), including office buildings in Singapore and London as well as residential projects in Australia. The company was founded in 1987 by Chua Thian Poh, a high school dropout who got his start making hooks and spikes for the logging industry. With a net worth of $1.2 billion, Chua ranked No. 38 in the Forbes Asia list of Singapore’s richest that was published in September last year.

This story was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.

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