Yang Kee Logistics Pte Ltd (“Yang Kee”) is pleased to announce that it has completed its acquisition of New Zealand Exchange (“NZX”) Mainboard listed company, Fliway Group Ltd (“Fliway”) today for $52.1 million for 100% of the shares, making it the first and largest Singaporean Third Party Logistics (“3PL”) player to operate in New Zealand and the Oceania region.

This second major strategic Oceania acquisition would boost the group’s revenue by another S$81.9 million, bringing its group revenue to over S$400 million. The combined Yang Kee group will now have a headcount of over 1250 employees in 12 countries across Australia, China, Hong Kong, South-east Asia and the US.

Pursuant to the Scheme Implementation Agreement (“SIA”) that was announced earlier on 26 October 2017, the SIA has now been implemented and Yang Kee has acquired all the outstanding shares in Fliway for NZ$1.22 cash per share by way of a scheme of arrangement. This constitutes a change of control of Fliway, which is now wholly owned by Yang Kee, and Fliway has delisted from NZX with effect from today.

“Our vision as a home-grown logistics player has always been to go global, and we are proud that Yang Kee is the very first Singaporean logistics company with 3PL capabilities to operate in New Zealand, with the largest footprint across Oceania. We saw huge opportunities in the Oceania region as both New Zealand and Australia enjoy strong trade relations with Asia, and with each other. This gives us the potential Media Release to fully leverage on these key trade lanes, to facilitate cross Oceania trade as well as trade flows between Oceania and Yang Kee’s existing networks in China and South East Asia,” said Mr Ken Koh, Group CEO of Yang Kee Logistics.

New Zealand had registered an overall trade surplus of NZ$3 billion, exporting over NZ$70.4 billion worth of goods and services for the year ended March 2017, while total imports were NZ$67.4 billion. Its bilateral trade with Australia reached NZ$24 billion, and Australia remained as New Zealand’s top trading partner and export destination for goods and services at NZ$12.9 billion for the year, followed by China at NZ$12.6 billion1.

With a stronger foothold in the region which comes on the back of Yang Kee’s first Oceania acquisition of Australia logistics company Axima Pty Ltd (“Axima”) in March last year2, Yang Kee will be looking into yielding greater synergies from the network integration of shared international freight volumes between Fliway and Axima and cross selling opportunities in their combined customer bases to Asia.

“This is a great milestone for both the Fliway Group and Yang Kee, and significantly strengthens our position across the Tasman and in the Asia Pacific Region – providing opportunities to service our customers beyond New Zealand and offering further project options, centres of excellence, career development and progression for our people locally and globally,” said Mr Duncan Hawkesby, Managing Director of Fliway Group Ltd.

International Enterprise (“IE”) Singapore has been partnering Yang Kee in fuelling its global growth strategy to deepen its foothold in key markets and enhance its end-to-end supply chain networks, and had supported Yang Kee for the Axima and Fliway acquisitions.

Mr Law Chung Ming, Group Director for Transport & Logistics, IE Singapore, said, “Yang Kee’s successful completion of the Fliway acquisition further strengthens its value proposition as a global logistics player. With the combined strengths of Axima and Fliway, Yang Kee now has stronger global networks and supply chain capabilities. This enhances Singapore’s connectivity to the Southwest Pacific region, allowing Singapore companies to tap its logistics solutions to access the Australia and New Zealand markets. Companies in these two markets can also leverage Yang Kee’s solutions to expand into Singapore and Southeast Asia.”

Financing of the Acquisition

The acquisition of Fliway was financed by the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (“ANZ”) as well as United Orient Capital (“UOC”), a special situation fund sponsored by the United Overseas Bank Limited.

ANZ is the sole mandated lead arranger, underwriter and bookrunner for Yang Kee’s acquisition of Fliway, as well as the earlier acquisition of Axima.

1Source: New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs

2Yang Kee’s acquisition of Axima added S$150 million to Yang Kee’s revenue and brought with it world class capabilities in international freight forwarding in all major Australian gateways, as well as the China and US markets.