Jun 2007 Financial News

Ansa McAl wants shareholders to seek more time

Jun 27, 2007

ANSA McAL WANTS Barbados Shipping & Trading (BS&T) shareholders to vote today for more time to assess its $7 per share offer.

It is the latest move by Ansa McAl as the company and its Trinidadian rival Neal & Massy yesterday appealed to the hearts and minds of BS&T shareholders.

Ansa McAl wants complete control of the company and is willing to pay out more than $1/2 billion for BS&T's 75 million shares in a hostile takeover.

Neal & Massy, a long-time partner of BS&T, is seeking a merger, offering one share in the merged entity for every 2.75 BS&T shares. Dissenting shareholders, it said, who wanted cash could request a fair value payment from Neal & Massy.

Document on way

In a release yesterday, Ansa McAl reiterated its offer, saying a comprehensive offer document would be delivered to BS&T shareholders on or before July 16.

Saying it was offering local shareholders "options", Ansa McAl maintained that if it got control of BS&T, the Barbados icon "will not disappear from the Barbadian landscape".

Citing its acquisition of A.S. Bryden in 2003, Ansa McAl said its "corporate commitment in bringing companies together is leaving 'mind and management' in place".

"The Brydens brand has been maintained and has grown in value over the period. By the Brydens experience the employees of BS&T companies can be assured that Ansa McAl's acquisition will result
in smarter, more effective utilisation of resources including the most important resource, its people," the statement added. (GE)

Source:
The Nation Newspaper
Wednesday June 27, 2007

http://www.nationnews.com/story/364984126433531.php