ARA Asset Management takeover by Scheme of Arrangement

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And yet another stock is being taken over by private equity. I have only invested for 2 years and a lot of my stocks are being delisted. First, Saizen, then China Merchants Pacific, and Select Group.

I'm not selling ARA yet and I will definitely vote no. This is because the offer is by scheme of arrangement, where number of investor count also plays a part. So there's a good fighting chance for the minority investors. I would probably have sold if it was a general offer. Anyway the price is around 1.70 right now. It is about a 4.7% at the takeover price, which is worth the wait anyway even if the deal passes. It is likely that the deal will pass by at least June 2017. So close to 9.4% p.a. return.

Furthermore, the company has good prospects and I'm unwilling to sell it cheap. Especially after they announced such a good set of results and increased their AUM by so much. The PE right now is at least less than 20x. And in 2007, they IPOed at 43.6x. Granted PE might not be the best way but if we look at the AUM I definitely feel that the company is worth more.

There is no other comparable company on SGX that has a business model like ARA. So if ARA really gets delisted it'll be hard to find a replacement. For now I bought Frasers Centrepoint (FCL) as a pseudo replacement in case ARA is sold. I like the recurring cashflows of FCL even though it is not as asset-light as ARA.

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