Australian automotive aftermarket parts firm Bapcor will increase its offer price for Hellaby Holdings from $3.30 to $3.60 per share today.
It says the institutional shareholders have agreed to accept the all-cash takeover offer at the revised offer price.
Bapcor says that Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC), Pengana Capital and Aspiring Asset Management are committing to accept it’s offer for their entire Hellaby shareholdings once the price increases.
Together, these shareholders hold or control approximately 10% of Hellaby’s shares.
Now according to Bapcor, the retail and institutional investors representing about 40% of Hellaby shares have accepted the new offer, or committed to doing so.
Bapcor chief executive Darryl Abotomey, says the decision to increase the price came after consultation with major shareholders and that Bapcor will not be increasing its offer price further.
“Our discussions with various parties indicated that $3.60, which is within Grant Samuel’s Independent Adviser’s valuation range, would be the trigger point for them to accept our offer,” says Abotomey.
“When including Hellaby’s head office costs in the valuation, as we believe they should be, $3.60 is near the top of an adjusted range of $3.18 to $3.64 per Hellaby share,” he says.
Abotomey strongly encouraged Hellaby’s retail shareholders to accept Bapcor’s offer once revised.
“Our 100% cash offer provides certainty to shareholders in contrast to the risks around Hellaby’s unproven business strategy that is, in our view, increasingly being recognised as over-ambitious,” says Abotomey.
“We feel that $3.60 per Hellaby share would also represent a 29% premium to the volume weighted average price of Hellaby shares over the three months before the first announcement of the offer,” he says.
“Bapcor believes that retail shareholders should take confidence from the fact that large professional institutional shareholders consider our takeover offer the best way to realise value from their investment in Hellaby,” says Abotomey.
Bapcor will also extend the closing date for the offer from December 20, 2016, to January 18, 2017. The last time that Bapcor may declare the offer unconditional is extending from January 3, 2017, to February 1, 2017.
Bapcor’s variation notice increasing the offer price and extending the closing date will be mailed to Hellaby shareholders today.
