Malaysia's Camerlin to give out BIL stock

KUALA LUMPUR - MALAYSIAN investment firm Camerlin Group unveiled plans yesterday to hand almost all of its 22.3 per cent stake in Singapore investment house BIL International to its shareholders.

Camerlin said the move would allow it to restructure its own share capital, erase all of its accumulated losses and put it in better shape to look for new businesses and assets, reported Reuters.

Camerlin, controlled by Malaysian billionaire Quek Leng Chan, said it had yet to calculate the distribution ratio but that shareholders would receive somewhere between 0.65 and 0.67 of a BIL share for each Camerlin share.

'The proposed capital distribution and proposed consolidation will enable Camerlin's shareholders to have direct equity participation in the BIL shares,' it said in a statement.

'The proposed cancellation of accumulated losses will...provide the company with the opportunity to reconstruct its capital structure to facilitate its future plans.'

BIL, formerly known as Brierley Investments, has a global portfolio of investments in the hotels and resorts, and food and beverage industries. Its major investment is in Thistle Hotels, which runs 49 hotels in the United Kingdom and was privatised two years ago for $1.87 billion.

BIL's other key investments are the Denarau and Bass Strait oil and gas properties. It also owns the prestigious Clermont Club casino in Berkeley Square in London's West End, which it bought from Britain's Rank Group.

BIL, which has secondary listings in London and New Zealand, owns, leases or manages more than 11,000 rooms in Britain and claims to be the London's largest hotel operator with more than 6,000 rooms.

Camerlin plans to distribute up to 303.14 million BIL shares, worth about $500 million at the latter's current share price.

Camerlin and its subsidiaries own 304.6 million shares.