(Reuters) -Great Eastern is set to resume trading on the Singapore Exchange after the insurer failed to secure enough votes to delist from the domestic bourse at a shareholders’ meeting on Tuesday.
Great Eastern said 63.49% of its minority shareholders voted in favour of its de-listing proposal, falling short of the 75% approval needed to go ahead, according to stock exchange filings by the company.
It has not announced an exact date for the resumption of trading on the Singapore Exchange but said it will make further announcements.
Great Eastern on June 6 proposed to delist from the domestic bourse by way of its largest shareholder, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp, offering S$900 million ($703.73 million) to buy the rest of the insurer it does not already own.
Trading in Singapore-based Great Eastern’s shares was suspended on July 15 last year, after its free float fell below 10% following an offer by OCBC to acquire an 11.56% stake at S$25.60 each in May 2024.
OCBC, Singapore and Southeast Asia’s second largest shareholder by assets, had obtained acceptance from some shareholders and now owns 93.72% of Great Eastern.
“The objectives are to capture benefits from further operational synergies with GEH and a higher share of its value,” OCBC said in a statement on Tuesday.
“These objectives have been met with the increase in OCBC’s investment in GEH to 93.72% in October 2024, successfully concluding the VGO (voluntary general offer),” it added.
($1 = 1.2789 Singapore dollars)
(Reporting by Rajasik Mukherjee in Bengaluru and Yantoultra Ngui in Singapore; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala, Eileen Soreng and Louise Heavens)
