Independent financial adviser appointed for partial offer for Cordlife

Cordlife has appointed Novus Corporate Finance as the independent financial adviser for a voluntary conditional cash partial offer it has received from a Thai company, said the private cord-blood bank on Thursday (May 29) in a bourse filing.

Medeze Treasury, a wholly owned subsidiary of Thai-listed stem cell company Medeze Group, had offered to buy a 10 per cent stake in Cordlife, or about 25.6 million shares, at S$0.25 apiece.

This reflects a premium of around 61.3 per cent over Cordlife’s last traded price before the offer announcement of S$0.155 on May 9, and is also higher than its 12-month volume-weighted average price.

This is Medeze’s first step into the Singapore market, as the company seeks to explore business opportunities with Cordlife, which has been embroiled in an investigation by the Ministry of Health after the company was found to have mishandled stored cord-blood units.

Medeze Treasury said the deal offers long-term opportunities for both companies, including the promotion of services together for market expansion, products and services development, and operational synergies.

Earlier in March, Cordlife sunk into the red with a net loss of S$6.3 million for its second half ended Dec 31, 2024, compared with a net profit of S$1.3 million in the previous corresponding period. This was mainly due to the fallout from lapses discovered in the storage of the company’s cord-blood units two years ago.

Shares of Cordlife closed flat at S$0.27 on Thursday.

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