Union Bank Of Nigeria‘s shares witnessed an increase on Tuesday since June 14 as the market was awash with buy orders from investors following an announcement of a tender offer by by Titan Trust Bank, its new majority owner.
Union Bank’s shares wne up 9.32 per cent as of 09:43 WAT, 13 minutes after the market opened to trade. That was less than one per cent shy of the 10 per cent maximum daily appreciation limit set by the Nigerian Exchange.
Titan Trust said Monday it will launch a mandatory takeover bid to procure 6.6 per cent of the common stock of Union Bank from minority shareholders, according to a regulatory filing seen by PREMIUM TIMES.
A tender offer is a bid to minority stockholders of a publicly listed company to sell their shares.
Titan Trust sealed the deal leading up to the acquisition of a 93.4 per cent holding in the 105-year old bank earlier this year, a reverse takeover completed for an undisclosed sum.
As required by the Nigerian stock market regulations, the mandatory offer allows Titan Trust to purchase the remaining 6.6 per cent shareholding equivalent over 1.9 billion ordinary shares, a tender bid to be priced at N7.00 and offered at a premium above the market price, standing at N5.9 on Monday, the day the offer was announced.
The N7.00 was “the price at which the block trade was executed,” Union Bank said.
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“Titan Trust has received the Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval to launch the MTO,” a statement posted on the website of the Nigerian Exchange said.
A business combination of both entities will result before the turn of the year, a source close to the deal told PREMIUM TIMES. He said the brand name “Union Bank” will be adopted.
Titan Trust has set 5pm on 31 October as the qualification date for the tender offer, the day by which names of interested shareholders must appear in Union Bank’s register of members to be eligible. The date will similarly serve as the settlement date for trades conducted on 26 October.
Tropical General Investment Group (TGI), the conglomerate parent company of Titan Trust and Union Bank, has an annual revenue totaling $1.5 billion. TGI’s broad interests span banking, agribusiness, petrochemicals, real estate among others.
Source: Premium times
