Dec 2007 Financial News

NEW OFFERs FOR BARBADOS FARMS LIMITED

Dec 31, 2007

THE ball is now in the court of Sagicor Financial Corporation to tender a fresh offer if it wants to acquire the Barbados Farms Limited (BFL).

Last week CLSS Holdings Limited the other company bidding for control of the farming group, increased its offer for BFL to $5.50 a share just after the closing day of a previous offer worth $5 a share.

Assuming that all BFL shares are tendered to CLSS Holdings, a subsidiary of CLICO Holdings Limited, the final payout to the shareholders would be around $115.5 million, according to tentative calculations.

[However] it is up to Sagicor now to come back with a counter offer and an all cash one as well, said a shareholder and director of the BFL.

He told Business Monday that when the bidding campaign had started some shareholders like himself would have accepted nothing less than six dollars a share.

So we seem to be getting there, he said in an interview with this newspaper.

Furthermore, people, and for that matter shareholders (of BFL), are desirous of cash and not shares since they can take some of the cash and buy stocks in other companies on the Barbados Stock Exchange, he said.

[Therefore] Sagicor will have to come again, he remarked, while also calling for more disclosure on the lock in arrangements which Chairman G. Anthony King and CEO Martin Brathwaite had alluded to in the most recent Directors Circular pertaining to the Sagicor offer.

While CLSS Holdings has put forward an all cash offer Sagicors is based on cash and shares as follows: (a) 65 per cent of the purchase price of Sagicor financial Corporation; and (b) the balance of 35 per cent of the purchase price to be paid in cash.

CLSS believes that its all cash offer is superior to any combined stock and cash offer of equal value, said Terrence Thornhill, the President.

The Sagicor offer is scheduled to close on January 9, 2008, while that of CLSS Holdings Limited will close the following day.

Source:
Jewel Brathwaite
The Barbados Advocate
Monday 31st December, 2007

http://www.barbadosadvocate.com/NewViewNewsleft.cfm?Record=34109