Japanese PE firm buys 11% stake in Sunshine Holdings for Rs.742mn

The shareholding structure of Sunshine Holdings PLC (Sunshine), a diversified holding company, has been reshaping during the last four months or so in particular as the ownership is seen getting concentrated among a few strategic partners. 
Little over a week into the closure of a voluntary offer by Lamurep Investments Limited (Lamurep)—an investment firm owned by a few directors of Sunshine— on Sunshine, last Friday saw a Japanese private equity group buying up to 11 percent of the shares of the company.

SBI Ven Holdings Private Limited is an investment holding company of Japan’s SBI Holdings Inc., one of Japan’s biggest PE firms with assets under management in excess of US $ 3.0 billion. 
The Rs.742.5 million deal went through in two crossings of 2.79 million shares and 12.06 million shares, each at Rs.50 a share. The purchase was facilitated by First Guardian Equities Private Limited. 
The Sunshine share closed at Rs.3.40 or 6.87 percent lower at Rs.46.10 on Friday.
SBI Ven Holdings Private Limited invests extensively in financial services and technology sectors, particularly across Asia. 
SBI Ven Holdings already have investments in Sri Lanka’s National Development Bank PLC (NDB) and L B Finance PLC. 
As of December 31, 2016, SBI Ven Holdings was the fourth largest shareholder in L B Finance with a 1.155 percent stake and it was also the tenth largest shareholder in NDB with a 3.03 percent stake.  
With the latest purchase, SBI Ven Holdings Private Limited will most likely become the fourth largest shareholder of Sunshine group after Lamurep, high net-worth investor Dr. T. Senthilverl and Deepcar Limited, who among themselves hold close to 90 percent of the issued shares of Sunshine. 
After accumulating shares up to 32.12 percent in Sunshine in December 2016, Lamurep offered a voluntary offer to buy the remaining shares of the company and when the offer period ended on March 20, Lamurep held 49.34 percent stake in the company. 
As of December 31, 2016, Dr. T. Senthilverl held 22.42 percent stake while Deepcar Limited held 18.94 percent stake in the company. 
Further Ceylon Property Development Limited held 2.22 percent stake and Sunshine Managing Director V. Govindasamy held another 0.33 percent.  All these investors did not accept the voluntary offer. 
Even before the voluntary offer, the public holding of the company was just over 7.0 percent which may have now been erased further.  This will raise questions over the company’s intention of continuing as a listed entity considering the need to comply with the mandatory public float rules.  
Sunshine group has interests mainly in healthcare, agriculture, FMCG, energy and packaging.
For the 9 months ended December 2016, the group reported earnings of Rs.446.7 million or Rs.3.31 a share, down 12.0 percent.