SIA directors opt not to subscribe for rights MCBs

MOST directors of Singapore Airlines (SIA) have chosen to let their rights mandatory convertible bonds (MCBs) lapse without exercising them, despite proposing the MCB rights issuance to shareholders as part of larger cash call in April.

SIA chief executive Goh Choon Phong let his provisional allotments in respect of 3.34 million rights MCBs lapse last week, according to a Singapore Exchange filing on Monday.

SIA non-executive chairman Peter Seah also let his allotment of 73,160 rights MCBs lapse last week, filings showed. However, both Mr Goh and Mr Seah have applied to take up all their rights shares, and their actual allocations will be decided at a later date. 

SIA's rights exercise involved the issue of 295 rights MCBs for every 100 SIA shares held. Each of the rights can be exercised at S$1 for one MCB.

The rights shares were issued on the basis of three rights shares for every two existing SIA shares owned by shareholders.

Other SIA directors that let their rights MCBs lapse included Gautam Banerjee, chairman of Blackstone Singapore, and Simon Cheong of SC Global Developments. Their provisional allotments were 20,945 rights MCBs and 20,266 rights MCBs respectively. That said, Mr Banerjee and Mr Cheong did subscribe for their rights shares entitlements.

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Three other directors - David John Gledhill and Dominic Ho of DBS Bank; as well as Lee Kim Shin, a managing partner of Allen & Gledhill - took up neither the rights shares nor the rights MCBs.

The Business Times understands that this may be because Mr Gledhill and Mr Ho count as foreign shareholders. The rights are not offered to shareholders with registered addresses outside Singapore.

A spoksperson for SIA said: "The SIA directors act in their personal capacity as shareholders, and we do not comment on their individual investment decisions."