The board of local seafoods business Mareterram intends to accept a $19.7 million proportional takeover offer from the company’s largest shareholder.
The board of local seafoods business Mareterram intends to accept a $19.7 million proportional takeover offer from the company’s largest shareholder.
Sea Harvest, a South African-based fishing company with a 19.9 per cent stake in Mareterram, has offered to buy half of the shares owned by the Perth company’s shareholders in an off-market cash offer of 35 cents a share.
The deal will boost Sea Harvest’s stake in Mareterram to about 59.6 per cent, at a cost of about $19.7 million, while all existing shareholders will retain half of their current ownership in the business.
The offer price is a 75 per cent premium to the company’s debuting share price when it first began trading on the ASX in January, and a 19.7 per cent premium to its 30-day volume weighted average price.
The offer already has the support of Mareterram’s largest shareholders (other than Sea Harvest) – Craig Mostyn Group and Orange Sun Development Corporation – as well as its directors, which together represents 17.3 per cent of the company’s total issued capital.
Mareterram chief executive David Lock said the offer would be an outstanding result for the company and its shareholders.
“To be more closely aligned with a high-quality company with the fishing industry expertise and experience of Sea Harvest is an exciting and significant development for our growing company,” he said.
“This transaction reinforces our strategic direction and will help us deliver our strategy to drive long-term value creation for all Mareterram shareholders.”
If the deal is successful, Sea Harvest will appoint its chairman, Fred Robertson, to Mareterram’s board as a non-executive director, while Mareterram will gain greater access to Sea Harvest’s global supply chain and increased funding support from its largest shareholder.
Euroz Securities is acting as corporate adviser to Mareterram, with Gilbert + Tobin as legal adviser.
Mareterram began trading on the ASX in January after raising $18 million from investors and undertaking a major corporate restructure.
The company was born out of the acquisition of Nor-West Seafoods for $20 million and Craig Mostyn Group’s food services division for $8.75 million by Style, a shell company that was led by now-Mareterram chairman Peter Hutchinson and former AFL footballer James Clement.
Mareterram shares were 3.1 per cent higher to 33 cents each at 10:20am.
