The Board of Directors of Trinidad Cement Ltd (TCL) has advised shareholders that the second offer by Mexican cement company, Cemex, was not fair and it was not in the best interest of shareholders to accept the offer.
In its amended offer, Cemex put a price of TT$5.07 or US$0.76 on the table per TCL share.
TCL says accounting firm Ernst and Young were commissioned on January 9, to provide a fairness opinion on the amended offer from Cemex. Ernst and Young has stated that the amended offer was not fair from a financial point of view. The firm suggested that the valuation ranged from TT$5.60 to TT$6.18 per share.
Last December, Mexico’s cement giant, Cemex, announced that it was making a takeover bid for Claxton Bay-based TCL.
Cemex, through one of its indirect subsidiaries Sierra Trading, is looking to acquire 132,616,942 shares at a price of $4.50 in cash per TCL share, the Mexican company said in a statement issued in Port-of-Spain, New York and Mexico City on December 5.
Sierra’s existing share ownership in TCL is approximately 39.5 per cent.
Cemex currently owns 39.5 per cent of TCL, which announced at the end of October 2016 that its revenue had declined by 12.2 per cent for the first nine months of 2016, which it said had been caused by a “precipitous fall in construction activity in Trinidad and Tobago.”
Cemex said if the takeover is successful, TCL will continue operating as usual and will be maintained as a publicly listed company on the T&T Stock Exchange.
TCL’s main operations are in T&T, Jamaica and Barbados and the company is the majority shareholder of Caribbean Cement Company Ltd (CCCL) in Jamaica. (CNC3)