Temasek Leaves a Listing Ship

It's cheaper to put your belongings on a container ship and send them around the world for a year than to stick them in a land-based self-storage facility, according to freight forwarders Flexport. So it's a good time for Singapore's state investment company Temasek Holdings to bail out of the city-state's shipping line, Neptune Orient.

France's CMA CGM will pay S$1.30 cash a share for the container line, Neptune Orient said Monday, valuing the business at S$3.4 billion ($2.4 billion). Temasek will get about S$2.3 billion for its 67 percent stake.

That looks like a less-than-spectacular 16 percent premium to the shares' volume-weighted average price of S$1.12 over the past 30 trading days. But take a look at the six weeks to Nov. 6, when news of CMA CGM and Maersk's interest in the company leaked, and you get a much more attractive picture, with an admirably conventional 30 percent premium to the S$1.01 average.

A glance at Neptune Orient's earnings also suggests Singapore Inc. got out at a decent multiple, with the takeover likely to transact at 16.1 times trailing 12-month Ebitda. Just one marine transportation deal worth more than $1 billion has occurred at a higher multiple over the past five years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg -- the cosy reunion of billionaire John Fredriksen's two Frontline tanker businesses. Taking marine transport deals at all values during the period, the median multiple of 48 deals is just 7.3 times: