Cordlife jumps 48% to S$0.23 on partial offer from Thai-listed Medeze

[SINGAPORE] Shares of Cordlife surged by over 48 per cent on Thursday (May 15), after the company lifted its trading halt earlier in the morning, which had been put in place on Tuesday.

This came after a voluntary conditional cash partial offer from Medeze Treasury – a wholly owned subsidiary of Thai-listed stem cell company Medeze Group – was made for a 10 per cent stake in Cordlife.

The private cord-blood bank requested to lift its trading halt at 10.34 am on Thursday, which took effect at 11.15 am. By 11.24 am, its share price had increased by S$0.065 to S$0.22, from S$0.155.

As at 1.54 pm, Cordlife’s shares had risen 48.4 per cent or S$0.075 to S$0.23. At 2.06 pm, it fell slightly to S$0.225, up 45.2 per cent or S$0.07.

Medeze Treasury is seeking to acquire about 25.6 million shares at an offer price of S$0.25 apiece. As at Tuesday, the Medeze subsidiary holds nearly 1.7 million shares, which is close to 0.7 per cent of the voting rights in Cordlife.

The move by Medeze is its first step into the Singapore market, as the company seeks to explore business opportunities with Cordlife.

Assuming that the offer becomes unconditional and there are no changes to the number of shares up for offer, the resultant direct shareholding of Medeze Treasury in Cordlife shall be around 10.7 per cent of the shares (excluding treasury shares).

Earlier in March, Cordlife sunk into the red with a net loss of S$6.3 million for its second half ended Dec 31, 2024, compared with a net profit of S$1.3 million in the previous corresponding period. This was mainly due to the fallout from lapses discovered in the storage of the company’s cord-blood units two years ago.