ASX-listed Powerlan (ASX: PWR) has advised shareholders to take no action on the recent takeover bid from Alpha Growth International (Australia) Pty Ltd while it considers the offer.
Powerlan announced late last week that it had received an offer from Alpha to make an off-market takeover of all the issued shares in Powerlan Ltd.
Under the terms of the offer, accepting Powerlan shareholders would receive $0.10 for each Powerlan share.
The offer is subject to a minimum acceptance condition of more than 90 per cent of Powerlan shares.
Alpha’s board consists of several current Powerlan shareholders including former Powerlan chief executive officer, Dr Tomislav Matic, who headed the company from 2005 to 2007.
The group also includes Jason Ong Ka Lu, chief executive officer of AsiaInfo International and Lim Cheng Hock, chief operations officer at AsiaInfo International.
In the letter to Powerlan, Matic said Powerlan had failed to deliver adequate returns to shareholders for several years, with three years of “unacceptable losses”, a share price decline of 79 per cent over the past four years and no dividend paid to shareholders in 2009.
According to Matic, the $0.10 per share offer represented a premium of 33.3 per cent on the trading price of 9 December 2009. Powerlan shares last traded at $0.125.
AsiaInfo International is owned by AsiaInfo Holdings (AIH) a provider of telecom software solutions and IT security products and services in China.
Powerlan provides specialist information technology products and services, business process outsourcing and infrastructure support through a group of four specialist companies: Clarity, Converter Technology, IMX Software, and Omnix.