NOL Suspends Shares as M&A Talks Enter Final Day

SINGAPORE, Dec 7 (Reuters) – Shares of Singapore’s Neptune Orient Lines Ltd (NOL) were suspended on Monday as talks between French shipping giant CMA CGM SA to acquire NOL from its controlling shareholder Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings entered the final day.

NOL announced on Nov. 21 that exclusive talks between CMA and a unit of Temasek, which owns nearly 67 percent of the shipping firm, would end just before midnight on Dec 7.

A deal would give the combined entity a strong lead in busy trans-Pacific maritime routes.

NOL, which has a market capitalization of $2.3 billion, has struggled from a prolonged downturn in the global shipping market, posting four years of consecutive losses.

However, plans to offload assets have helped buoy the company’s share price by about 40 percent so far this year.

Earlier this year, NOL sold its logistics business for $1.2 billion to Japanese freight carrier Kintetsu World Express Inc . (Reporting by Saeed Azhar; Editing by Richard Pullin)

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015.

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