Sembcorp eyes acquisition of Cascal shares

Acquisition of 17,868,543 shares seen as a major milestone for Sembcorp in the fast-growing water sector.

Sembcorp Industries Ltd (Sembcorp) announced on Monday that its wholly owned subsidiary, Sembcorp Utilities Pte Ltd (Sembcorp Utilities) has entered into a tender offer and stockholder support agreement with Biwater Investments Limited (Biwater), to acquire Biwater's 17,868,543 shares of Cascal N.V. (Cascal) (representing approximately 58.4% of the outstanding common shares of Cascal), a New York Stock Exchange-listed company and leading provider of water and wastewater services, and to launch a tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding common shares of Cascal.

Tang Kin Fei, Group President & CEO of Sembcorp Industries said in a statement on Monday, "This acquisition will transform Sembcorp into a global water service provider and provide the platform for the Group to accelerate our growth in the future. We will have water and wastewater facilities in 31 operating locations in 11 countries around the world, and our water capacity in operation and under development globally will increase by 50% from four million to close to six million cubic metres per day."

Commenting on the transaction, Lawrence Magor, Chief Executive Officer, Biwater, said, "Following an extensive process to find our preferred buyer for our stake in Cascal, this transaction will allow Biwater to reduce significantly its debt, whilst providing Cascal with a new shareholder which is well placed to support the continued growth of the company."

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia