JARDINE Strategic has paid US$93 million to lift its stake in Singapore-based conglomerate Cycle and Carriage to 23 per cent. In December the investment holding company of the Jardine Matheson group of companies said it had spent $130 million on a 16 per cent stake in the group. Director Anthony Nightingale said the group's original stake had been diluted slightly to a little less than 15 per cent in a conversion of warrants since the original purchase. The transaction, expected to be funded internally, involved the group taking about 20 million shares. Managing director Nigel Rich said: ''When we acquired our initial holding in Cycle and Carriage we indicated our desire to increase our interest in due course. ''It is not our intention to make a full bid for the company.'' Mr Nightingale said Jardine Strategic was represented on the group board and the boards of other listed interests of the company with the two other key shareholders being Eon, the Malaysian Proton carmaker, and the Employees Pension scheme, the Malaysianprovident fund. At present, Malaysian car distributor Edaran Otomobil National is Cycle's biggest shareholder, with a 21 per cent stake. Jardine Matheson (Singapore) chairman Boon Yoon Chiang is to take over as Cycle's managing director on October 1. This follows the initial investment by Jardines in Cycle and Carriage, when it bought a stake from the Kuwait Investment Office. Mr Rich said: ''Cycle and Carriage has a number of excellent businesses which complement those of our other strategic investments and, as our relationship develops, we would expect benefits to accrue to both groups.'' Mr Nightingale said there was plenty of scope for synergies in car distribution in Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand in hotels and food stuffs along with property investment. This tended to interlock with the Jardine group interests in, respectively, Jardine International Motor Holdings, Mandarin Oriental, Dairy Farm International and Hongkong Land. Cycle and Carriage distributes Mercedes-Benz in Singapore and Malaysia, along with Mitsubishi, Proton Saga and Lotus in Singapore. It also distributed Mazda in Malaysia. In Malaysia the group has cold storage supermarkets and Guardian Pharmacies. On May 20 the group announced flat interim profits of US$23.7 million for the six months to March 31. Group revenue inched up 4.5 per cent to S$836 million (about HK$4 billion). Earnings per share fell 16.8 per cent to 17.8 Singapore cents. The group successfully acquired a family-run company, Malayan Credit, earlier in the month. Recent rumours of a takeover of Cycle and Carriage by Jardines has seen the share surge and yesterday it firmed 45 Singapore cents to $7.45 on busy volume of 13.46 million shares. Cycle's shareholder funds stood at $486 million and assets at $656 million at the end of 1992.
