“Take privates” in Singapore

The current trend for taking public companies private continues unabated. From 2016 to 2021, delistings outnumbered listings on the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited (the “SGX”). This trend emerges from an environment where companies on the SGX often trade at a discount to their book values, and cheap debt with which to acquire publicly traded shares is readily available.

In light of prevailing market uncertainty and the desire for public companies and their major shareholders to strategically reposition themselves for the long-term, we believe this trend will continue in 2022. However, the pace of this trend may slow slightly due to changes made to the voluntary delisting regime in 2019 designed to protect minority shareholders, which may make privatisations more difficult to structure.