Last week, Yura, from the Peruvian Gloria group, launched a takeover bid for 20% of the cement company CBB, however, months ago, the US giant had already made an offer for 100% of Bío Bío.
Two companies, one Peruvian and one American, are fighting to gain ownership of Cementos Bío Bío. While one is bidding to buy 20% of the shares of the Chilean company and increase its stake, the other has launched an offer in which it would acquire 100% of the shares, taking control of the well-known brand in the national construction sector.
The first information to be released was regarding the offer from Yura Chile SpA, a subsidiary of the Peruvian company of the same name. The firm has seven plants in Latin America and already controls 19.71% of Cementos Bío Bío.
In a statement filed with the Financial Market Commission (CMF), the company stated that Yura had begun a “public acquisition offer for up to 53,000,000” shares, equivalent to 20.0590% of the total.
The price offered was $1,092.10 per share (US$1.12) and the process, as initially stated, would last 30 calendar days between November 14 and December 13.
In this case, Yura would have almost 40% of the property, being the second shareholder behind Inversiones Cementeras Ltda, which controls the remaining 41.81%.
Yura and MLC: the two companies that are fighting over Cementos Bío Bío
However, another North American company came forward with a bigger proposal, to the point that although this was confidentially reported to the CMF, Cementos Bío Bío decided to send a new essential fact this Monday, to make transparent what was indicated by Mississippi Lime Company (MLC).
This is a company founded in 1907, which claims to have the “largest lime plant” on the American continent and also has operations in Europe.
MLC has now presented the owners of Cementos Bío Bío with a non-binding offer for 100% of the shares, which “would be declared successful if at least 67% of them are sold.” The price for the shares would be higher than that offered by its Peruvian counterpart: US$1.89, equivalent to about $1,712 according to the exchange rate.
Upon being informed of this latest offer (in May of this year), the company's board of directors agreed to begin a due diligence process, common in this type of transaction, where all the important aspects of each of the firms are analyzed.
In essence, they state that the aforementioned process has ended “and negotiations by the shareholders are still ongoing.”
“It was noted that although negotiations between the aforementioned shareholders and MLC continue, the start of a public offering by Yura Chile SpA makes it necessary for all shareholders and the market in general to have all the information that could be relevant for their investment decisions and for the directors to be able to consider the necessary background information for the purposes of issuing the opinion required by law,” they concluded in the document sent to the regulator.
