Bidvest CE Brian Joffe
Photo by: Duane Daws
Bidvest and the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) have teamed up to potentially enter a pool agreement for joint control of a 47.82% stake in Adcock, as Bidvest prepared a firm purchase offer to be handed to Adcock this week.
The stake represented 82-million shares that would be split equally between the PIC, which already owned about 20% of Adcock, and Bidvest, which had a stake in excess of 30%.
The parties entered into discussions after Bidvest’s play in February for the remaining ordinary shares in Adcock that it did not already own for R52 apiece from the pharmaceutical firm’s black economic-empowerment (BEE) partners Blue Falcon Trading 69 and the Mpho ea Bophelo Trust.
Adcock aimed to terminate its BEE transaction, leaving Blue Falcon and the Trust with 2.57-million dividend-acquired Adcock ordinary shares, in favour of a new deal.
The pool agreement, which remained subject to the requisite regulatory approvals, including that of the competition authorities, would see Bidvest take responsibility for the management of Adcock.
Bidvest had also received an undertaking from the PIC that it would not accept the offer in relation to the 48.4-million Adcock shares PIC managed on behalf of the Government Employees Pension Fund and the Unemployment Insurance Fund.