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Privatisation has picked up pace this year, and is likely to continue, as acquirers - strategic investors, private equity firms and entrepreneurs - continue to target listed corporates. There have been about a dozen ongoing and completed takeout offers this year, mostly concentrated in the unloved small- to mid-cap space that is struggling with industry disruption, diminishing free float, and poor trading interest. Their aggregate market cap adds up to close to S$5 billion - albeit still a stretch to beat 2018's figure, which included Global Logistic Properties' record S$16 billion privatisation deal. Atin Kukreja, CEO of financial advisory firm Rippledot, cites low valuations, poor trading liquidity, strong corporate balance sheets, and cheap funding as the prime drivers behind the trend. "Liquidity and trading volume in the equity market is low, but they are high in the debt market. With the interest rate environment still benign, acquirers are able to ...

Sembcorp Marine chairman Mohd Hassan Marican at Tuesday's annual general meeting flagged that the company may be approaching the bottom of "a very long downcycle", and recovery could come as soon as later this year or in 2020. He also stressed that the group has shifted from fabrication and pure construction work to gradually becoming a marine engineering solutions provider, with a bias towards gas solutions. It is now doing higher-value work such as developing engineering solutions for more demanding environments, and this will be supported by its new facilities at Tuas Boulevard Yard, which has the infrastructure to allow the group faster turnaround of vessels, and larger dry docks that can do more complex jobs. "What we couldn't do before, we can now do in Tuas," he said. The group is currently head-quartered at Tanjong Kling. Asked by shareholders about the group's slim S$3 million gross profit and S$74 million net losses incurred in FY...