SINGAPORE Law and Practice Contributed by: Benjamin Gaw and Joel Tan, Drew & Napier LLC
with ESR-Logos REIT fails where Sabana Industrial REIT ultimately did not garner the required 75% approval for the merger to proceed. There are also activist funds active in Singapore that seek to unlock greater value in target companies via shareholder activism. Judah Value Activist Fund, based in Singapore, announced in August 2018 that it was in the process of building a position in a local bank before crafting an open letter suggesting opera - tional improvements. An investment manager, Quarz Capital Management, Ltd, has made open requests to several firms, such as CSE Global and Sunningdale Tech Ltd, requesting a range of actions from cash discipline to dividend distribution. 11.2 Aims of Activists There have been reported instances of shareholder activists seeking to encourage companies to enter into M&A transactions as a means to unlocking share - holder value – eg, in May 2017, investment manager Quarz Capital Management, Ltd requested HG Metal Manufacturing Limited to divest its stake in a com - petitor, BRC Asia Ltd. While HG Metal Manufactur - ing Limited did not acquiesce on that occasion, it did subsequently divest its stake later that year.
Activists may be more likely to act when they think that there will be positive effects on the company’s bottom line. Retail shareholder activists seem to be more interested in encouraging better corporate gov -
ernance to protect their investments. 11.3 Interference With Completion
It is fairly uncommon for activists to seek to interfere with the completion of announced transactions in Sin - gapore. However, there has been at least one reported instance of activist intervention in an announced deal, when Goldilocks Investment Company Limited sought injunctions to prevent the Noble Group Limited annual general meeting (AGM) from approving a deal (see 10.1 Frequency of Litigation ). In other cases, activists have sought board explana - tions for transactions that they believe to be question - able – eg, the board of Datapulse Technology Limited was strongly challenged by shareholders on the com - pany’s acquisitions of other firms at a recent AGM.
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