China’s Wuxi Little Swan has said its controlling shareholder plans to sell off its 24.01 percent stake in the washing machine maker.
State-owned Wuxi Guolian Development (Group) Co Ltd has made a decision to sell out of Little Swan, the company said in a statement, a day after trading in its domestic A and hard currency B shares was suspended pending a major announcement.
Little Swan has been struggling in recent years amid fierce price wars in China’s home appliance industry from competition from the likes Haier and Midea primarily.
The A shares of the company, which has a total market capitalisation of $868 million after a nearly 300 percent surge in its share price over the past 12 months, ended down 0.68 percent at 21.9 yuan on Friday on trade of 27 million shares — the second biggest daily volume since its 1997 listing.
There had been market talk the company had become an acquisition target of domestic and overseas appliance makers. The Shanghai Securities News said in a report on Monday that Little Swan had been approached by numerous potential buyers.
Little Swan, based in the eastern city of Wuxi, said in October that General Electric had agreed to buy a 30 percent stake in one of its units for $7.1 million. GE will help Little Swan to sell washing machines overseas and both sides will cooperate on research and development, Little Swan said.
Little Swan in August severed an alliance with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co (Panasonic) by selling stakes in two ventures with the Japanese company.