AMDB plans to buy 4 property firms from parent

AMDB Bhd plans to buy four property companies from parent AmcorpGroup Bhd as part of a reorganisation strategy.

Under the deal, AMDB will own a 100 per cent stake in Amcorp Prima Realty Sdn Bhd (APRB), a 60 per cent stake in HDC-Amcorp JV Sdn Bhd, a 100 per cent interest in Regal Genius Sdn Bhd and a 100 per cent stake in Distrepark Sdn Bhd.

AMDB will pay RM159.72 million in cash and new shares for its interest in APRB, Regal Genius and Distrepark to settle inter-company loans owed by the three companies to AmcorpGroup.

AMDB will also pay RM20.99 million for a 60 per cent stake in HDC-Amcorp.
APRB owns the Kayangan Heights development in Selangor, while HDC-Amcorp is in a joint venture to develop the Sibu Jaya township in Sarawak.

In a statement released in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, AMDB said it plans to reorganise itself as a focused property, engineering and infrastructure player.

The reorganisation also entails AMDB writing off RM356.55 million in accumulated losses, as well as the sale of certain non-core assets.

The group plans to hive off businesses which are not meaningfully valued by the market, such as its restaurant operations (Restoran Seri Melayu), travel and tour agents Harpers Travel and a minority stake in an advertising agency, J.Walter Thompson, to its holding company AmcorpGroup.
AmcorpGroup will pay RM22.1 million for them.

As a first step, AMDB will write off its entire accumulated losses via a capital reduction exercise, followed by a capital consolidation exercise. Secondly, it will sell the non-core assets and buy the four property companies.

Finally, AmcorpGroup proposes to make an offer for sale of up to 118 million shares to other shareholders of AMDB at an offer price of 50 sen per share.

Meanwhile, AMDB registered a net loss of RM1.4 million in its first-quarter financial period to June 30 2008, which was due to RM3.1 million in losses from discontinued operations.

By New Straits Times