Following the close of Fincantieri’s offer on 24 Mar 2017, the company held 878.5m shares of VARD Holdings, representing 74.45% of the total share capital.

Since then, Fincantieri has continued to absorb VARD shares via market transactions, buying 19.1m shares on 12 May 2017 for S$4.6m and another 14.1m shares on 24 May 2017 for S$3.4m.

The acquisition price for both instances was S$0.24/share, same as the offer price earlier. These moves bring Fincantieri’s stake in VARD to 77.95%.

Should VARD’s share price remain range-bound, we do not exclude the possibility of further purchases by Fincantieri, which had earlier sought to delist VARD.

Maintain HOLD with S$0.23 fair value estimate on VARD.

Source: OCBC Research - 30 May 2017