Eastland hits limit-up ahead of board meeting

KUALA LUMPUR: Eastland Equity Bhd’s shares hit limit-up before lunch break yesterday, and stayed at that level until the closing bell.

The normally thinly-traded Eastland saw more than two million shares changing hands, closing the day 30.5 sen higher at 84

sen a share.

Talk in the market is that the excitement has largely to do with the company’s board meeting scheduled for Monday.

Filings to Bursa Malaysia show that a cold war has been brewing between two shareholder factions in the company.

The filings also show that Eastland’s upand-coming shareholders’ meeting has been put on the back-burner due to the shareholder

disagreement. 

"The current Eastland board wants to push through a proposal for a private placement exercise of up to 10 per cent of the company's paid-up capital," Business Times was told.

"It's basically a move to fend off the shareholders," said the source, adding that the current Eastland board plans to bring in some big names from the east coast and Sabah and Sarawak to help prevent a takeover.

As at April this year, among the shareholders listed as owning more than five per cent of Eastland are Maylex Ventures Sdn Bhd, whose representative sits on the board of Eastland, and Prestige Pavilion Sdn Bhd.

Maylex owns some eight per cent of Eastland, while Prestige Pavilion owns some 11 per cent of the firm.

Source : btimes.com.my 7th July 2013