Good morning,
1) CanOne/KianJoo: Can One Bhd has received the Federal Court's go-ahead to proceed with the purchase of 32% of Kian Joo Can Factory Bhd (KJFC) for RM241.12m. In a Bursa statement, Can One said that the Federal Court had on Jan 5 allowed the liquidator's appeal to proceed with the completion of the sale of 146.1m shares of 25s each held by Kian Joo Holdings in Kian Joo at RM1.65 per share for RM241.1m to Can One International Bhd. The acquisition of the 32.9% stake will likely happen over the next few days, after which it may consider taking over the rest of Kian Joo, said a source. Can One is paying RM1.65 per Kian Joo share while the latter is currently trading at RM2.20. There is a possibility of Can One raising funds via a placement exercise of it's own shares, added the source - The battle between Can One & KJFC has been on-going in the last few years. Share price of Can One has skyrocketed, gaining some 50% over the last 2 trading days, while Kian Joo added 6%. However, whether it will be the end of the long drawn battle between Can One and KJCF's founding See family remains to be seen. Already, speculation is rife that the Sees may utilize part of the RM241.1m sale proceeds to launch a counter attack against Can One.
2) Proton: The Proton Holdings saga continues with DRB-Hicom group MD coming out to confirm that the group has put in a bid for the national carmaker. Speaking at a media retreat, MD did not provide details of the bid but admitted Proton would not be an easy project due to the stiff market competition. MD said the group submitted the proposal to Khazanah a few months ago when it first got wind that the stake was up for sale. In filings to Bursa last Dec, DRB-Hicom denied any knowledge of a bid for Proton and of plans to sell a stake in Proton to Volkswagen AG. Meanwhile over the weekend, a business weekly reported that more suitors were vying for the Proton stake, with the largest being businessman TS Arumugam Apavoo & Gerald Lopez of Genii Capital. Arumugam is said to be an associate of former Prime Minister Tun Mahathir (currently an advisor to Proton) while Genii Capital is the owner of the Renault F1 team. It is not known whether the duo had formally put in a bid.
3) Harvest Court: Bursa has lifted it's nearly 2 months old designation status on Harvest last Friday. Bursa also warned that it would continue to monitor the trading in the stock. To recap, in mid-November, Bursa declared Harvest Court's shares & warrants as "designated securities" after the share price rose as much as 20 times in a matter of weeks. Since then, the stock price has halved from a peak of RM2.14 to RM1.08 last Friday, although it's still well above the below 10s level the stock traded at prior to it's run up - Clearly, the restrictions had worked and taken away some froth, but will be closely watched again today on the normalization of it's trading status.
4) Mkt: expect market to be well supported despite the cautious sentiment of retailers in view of the events surrounding the Opposition Leader's court verdict.
