JohnDe
La dolce vita
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This is getting very interesting.
Canadian seafood giant Cooke hooksTassal investors, lifting stake to 7.6pc in $1.04bn takeover tilt
Hundreds of Tassal investors have sold their shares to Cooke, despite the board of the ASX-listed salmon producer rebuffing a $1.04bn takeover from the Canadian seafood giant.
In an after market announcement on Friday, Cooke revealed it had extended its stake in Tassal from 5.4 to 7.6 per cent.
This places the company within the key 10 per cent threshold, a holding large enough to potentially block a rival takeover offer.
More than 630 Tassal investors sold shares to Cooke on Friday at an average price of $4.82 a share. This was despite Tassal’s board telling shareholders that the Cooke offer of $4.85 a share undervalued the company, which it said had an “attractive independent future” and was “well positioned to deliver growth in shareholder value”.
Tassal’s board has rejected three offers from Cooke, with the previous bids priced at $4.67 and $4.80 a share.
Cooke has spent $21.68m in the past two days extending its holding in Tassal. The spending spree this week has sent Tassal shares surging 25.3 per cent, closing at $4.85 on Friday.
It had previously bid for Tassal’s smaller rival Huon, which was ultimately sold to Brazilian meat processing giant JBS for $425m last year, and made its first play for Tassal in January 2011.
Cooke has been buying shares via Amore Foods, a company controlled by its advisor David Williams, who bought Tassal from receivership in 2004 before floating it on the ASX.
Meanwhile, Mr Williams said Cooke’s offer was a “whale of a price for shareholders”.