Soup Restaurant: Special dividend?

Some of us might remember the recent saga of Soup Restaurant VS. Dian Xiao Er. For those not in the know, there was an announcement on 4 April by Soup Restaurant: read it here.

What interests me is this:

On 4 April 2012, the Plaintiffs communicated their acceptance of the Defendants’ 3 April 2012 offer. The Plaintiffs have agreed to purchase SRG and SRI’s shareholding of 50.98% in YES for the sum of S$7,901,900.00 (i.e. 50.98% of S$15,500,000.00), and for parties to withdraw or discontinue their respective claims and counterclaims in the Suit.

The Company is pleased that the Plaintiffs have accepted the Defendants’ offer without qualification, and that they have agreed to settle the Suit on the basis proposed by the Defendants. The Company is of the view that this outcome best ensures that shareholders’ value in the Company is preserved.

This was followed by another announcement by Soup Restaurant on what might they do with the money coming in. Read announcement by the Company: here.

Soup Restaurant said if the sale goes through, it has three options available to it on the use of the proceeds: distribute all the proceeds by way of a special dividend, use the proceeds to fund expansions, or distribute part of the proceeds to shareholders and deploy the balance for expansion.

Based on the number of shares on issue (298.5m shares), if Soup Restaurant were to pay out all the proceeds of $7.9m to shareholders, each share would get 2.6c in special dividend. If the Company decides to pay out half of the proceeds and retain half to fund its business expansion plans, it would still be an attractive 1.3c per share in special dividend.

Its share price closed at 12.5c in the last session.

Read the story: Dian Xiao Er no longer in the Soup.