Sinomem

Sinomem: Co has received a takeover bid at $0.70 per share, $351.3m in total , a 28.4% premium over last transacted price on Tuesday’s $0.545. The offer is approx 31.6% higher than firm’s NAV per share of $0.532. Co was halted on Wed morn and trading will resume today. The bid was from Clean Water Investment, a vehicle of a priv equity firm and Sinomem founders holding 56.1% of total shareholdings have undertaken to accept the offer…

Clean Water is seeking to privatize and delist Sinomem, firstly to create more flexibility to manage the business and also due to the low trading volume of its shares (0.31% of mkt cap over last 12 mths). The offer values Sinomem at approx 7.9x fwd P/E and 1.3x P/B…

List of other water membrane-related co include Memstar (current P/E 42.4x, P/B 2.2x) and United Envirotech (fwd P/E 9.5x, P/B 1.3x). Other water plays are Sound Global (fwd P/E 12.7x, P/B 2.8x), Asia Water (current P/E 41.8x and P/B 0.73x), Asia Env (loss-making, P/B 0.6x), Leader Env (fwd P/E 4.2x, P/B 2.8x). Boustead has also expressed interest in spinning off its water unit if there are suitable offers, co as a whole valued at fwd P/E 7.3x, P/B 2.0x.