By Khairie Hisyam
Property developers Eco World Development Group Bhd and Tropicana Corporation are suspended from trading today pending material announcements, according to separate announcements on Bursa Malaysia.
In separate filings to the exchange, both developers said the suspension will take effect from 2.30pm today until the 5.00pm bell “pending the release of a material announcement”.
However there was no indication from either developer that their respective shares suspensions are linked to each other. Both companies had separately announced their respective requests for suspension earlier today.
Interestingly The Star reported today that Tropicana’s founder, largest shareholder and group executive vice chairman Danny Tan had called off his earlier plans to inject prime Johor land into Singapore-listed Albedo Limited as talks broke down after both parties could not agree to a deal.
The proposed 762-acre land injection would have seen Tan undertake a reverse takeover of Albedo, a steel and raw materials company whose books are currently in the red.
On the other hand, Eco World was handed an Unusual Market Activity (UMA) query by the exchange in early January this year after its shares rose by some 79.25% within one calendar month from RM2.70 in early December to just below RM5.00 in January.
Tropicana was last traded at RM1.43 while Eco World was last traded at RM4.69 prior to suspension.
Notably talk had been rife in the market of Eco World possibly seeing corporate exercise which may include asset injection in the near-term.
However the company had publicly stated in January that it had not decided on any corporate proposals. Thus far there had been no asset injections involving Eco World.
Eco World is largely comprised of former SP Setia top brass and among its directors and major shareholders are Liew Tian Xiong, son of SP Setia president and chief executive officer Liew Kee Sin who announced his resignation in mid-January this year in favour of retirement.
While Liew had denied involvement with Eco World, he funded his son’s portion of the reverse take-over exercise by Eco World Development Sdn Bhd into Focal Aims Holdings Berhad, which was renamed Eco World Development Holdings Berhad after the successful take-over.
The younger Liew was separately named as offeror in the exercise alongside the privately held Eco World Development Sdn Bhd. The offer, worth RM230.7 million, was for 65% of then-Focal Aims which priced the shares at RM1.40 per share.
However there had been no asset injection into the listed company post-takeover and Eco World’s landbank of some 3,000 acres, which can reportedly generate a gross development value (GDV) of RM30 billion, remains privately held by the company.
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