Jul 2007 Financial News

Offers quite different ...BS&T Chairman says cash offer should not be compared to merger offer

Jul 16, 2007

ORANGES and apples!

Thats how Sir Allan Fields, Chairman of the Barbados Shipping and Trading Company Limited (BS&T), has compared the offer to BS&T shareholders to merge with Neal and Massy with the proposed seven dollars a share cash offer which Ansa McAl intends to put to the shareholders sometime today.

Sir Allan stated that Ansa Mcal had said it intended to come with an offer by June 30, then by July 15 and now July 16.

Sir Allan stated that what Ansa McAl is proposing is a cash offer and that one cannot compare a cash offer to a merger offer.

The shares in the hands of the Barbadian shareholders of BS&T, if they accept the merger, will have shares in a large company that is growing at a much faster rate, Sir Allan said, while noting that whereas BS&T was growing at five per cent annually, Neal and Massy is growing at 15 per cent.

When you put the 15 and the five together it is very obvious that BS&T shareholders have the opportunity to grow both in earnings per share, both in profitability, both in potential dividends and, more importantly, the value of those shares would escalate on the stock market, the BS&T Chairman maintained.

In my opinion those shares would be greatly sought after. So you are trying to compare a share that probably will escalate in value where you will get dividends year after year after year, with a seven dollar cash offer. I will put it to you that thats oranges and apples. There is no comparison, said the BS&T Chairman.

Of the interest shown by the Consortium, Sir Allan said that they had not come up with the names of the consortium and were saying they now want to buy the Neal and Massys 23 per cent shareholding in BS&T. Fields said it is not a serious offer.


Source:
Jewel Brathwaite
The Barbados Advocate
Monday 16th July, 2007

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