Jun 2007 Financial News

N&M/BS&T merger still on stream

Jun 26, 2007

NEAL AND MASSY Holdings has described the ANSA McAL conglomerate's notice of an intention to bid for Barbados Shipping and Trading Company (BS&T) shares as a hostile move and intends to continue full steam ahead to merge with the Barbadian company.

In a surprise move last Friday, ANSA McAL Ltd said it wanted to purchase BS&T stock as an alternative option to the recently announced merger proposed by Neal and Massy Holdings.

ANSA McAL indicated it would make a cash offer of BdS $7 (TT$21) per share to the shareholders of BS&T in an effort to consolidate interests of BS&T and ANSA McAL.

The current market price of BS&T shares is TT$17.

Speaking after a Neal and Massy shareholders meeting at the Hilton Trinidad yesterday, chairman Arthur Lok Jack told the Express: "Basically, all we know at the moment is that there is an intention to make an offer. Actually the board of BS&T has not yet received any correspondence from ANSA McAL on the issue so we are going ahead as planned. We had our meeting here today and all the resolutions regarding the merger were passed unanimously."

Neal and Massy chief executive office Bernard Dulal-Whiteway said yesterday:

"We look at it from a Neal and Massy point as a hostile situation because they are in fact making a takeover offer of an associate company of Neal and Massy and I presume that the BS&T directors, and I know that the chairman has said, that it is a hostile situation because nobody has talked with them before, they just got a notice," Dulal Whiteway added.

An expert market analyst told the Express: "I think that the ANSA McAL bid sort of came in out of the blue and I don't think any one was really expecting it. Maybe the move was simply to show Neal and Massy that ANSA McAL is not to be treated as a new kid on the block but as one of the more powerful conglomerates in the region. The whole move may just be power play on the part of ANSA McAL," he added.

Reports surfaced yesterday that yet another regional conglomerate had also made a bid with regard to the acquisition of BS&T shares but executives at the group were said to be in meetings and could not be reached yesterday.


Source:
Driselle Ramjohn
The Trinidad Express
Tuesday 26th June, 2007

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/print?id=161167766