On July 8, ICH Invest & Trade sold its 300,000 shares of Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Holdings YZJ Shipbldg SGD: BS6 -0.72% (Yangzijiang) that it had acquired back on Jan 7.

 

It sold the shares at S$1.39 per share, after acquiring them at 98 cents per share, representing a return of 42 per cent.

 

ICH Invest & Trade is a wholly owned subsidiary of ICH Group.

 

Yangzijiang independent non-executive director Toe Teow Heng holds 31.67 per cent of the total issued and paid up share capital of ICH Group.

 

He was appointed an independent director of Yangzijiang on April 30, 2020.

 

Mr Toe previously worked at DBS and the investment banking division of JP Morgan Chase & Co.

 

He was also formerly an associate director of UBS AG in Hong Kong and Singapore, where he was actively involved in the transport, leisure and hotel industries' M& A advisory in Asia.

 

Yangzijiang executive chairman and CEO Ren Letian maintains a 4.31 per cent deemed interest in the company.

 

He joined the group in 2006, and was appointed CEO on May 1, 2015, and executive chairman on April 30, 2020.

 

Yangzijiang operates four shipyards in Jiangsu Province, along the Yangtze River, in China.

 

On June 30, the group noted that it had inked agreements for the building and delivery of six units of 15,000 TEU containerships, three units of 3,300 TEU containerships and two units of 82,300 dwt bulk carriers.

 

With these latest orders, Yangzijiang has recorded two new achievements in the group' s history, the largest order wins in a fiscal year based on total contract value of US$5.6 billion, and a record-high outstanding order book of US$7.7 billion.

 

The order wins consist of 100 vessels, the majority of which are containerships, while the outstanding order book comprises 160 vessels.

 

The company is expected to report its H1FY21 (ended June 30) results around Aug 5.

 

On June 24, shipping organisation BIMCO noted that new orders for containerships was at a 14-year high.