The Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) has agreed to publish an advertisement for a mandatory purchase offer submitted by Expedition Investments to purchase up to 96.18m shares — or 34% — of Arab Food Industries (Domty) at EGP 5 per share.
The purchase is expected to complement the shares Expedition Investments already owns in Domty, raising its stake in the company to 90%.
The FRA obligated the offeror to buy all the shares offered for sale in response to the purchase offer, bearing in mind that if the shares offered for sale exceed the number of shares required to be purchased, the offeror will purchase from all share owners who responded to the offer in the ratio of the sum of what was offered.
The FRA noted that its approval to publish the offer is not a dependence on the commercial and investment feasibility of the purchase offer or any concluded procedures, agreements, or decisions to be taken by the offeror, and the authority does not interfere in determining the price of the purchase offer.
Furthermore, informed sources told Daily News Egypt that Expedition Investments is a company established according to the laws of the State of Mauritius that is owned by a number of Egyptian, Saudi, and Emirati investors, and its purpose is to acquire a 34% stake in Domty — one of the largest players in the Egyptian cheese sector — which controls a share exceeding 43% of the cheese production market.
The sources also indicated that 90% of the target share of the offer includes a contribution from Al-Damaty after the acquisition, which will rise to more than the current 56% by a small amount of Domty’s capital indirectly through Expedition, while 10% of the company will remain as free-trading shares to ensure the continuation of the company’s listing on the Egyptian Exchange.
The sources expect that the deal will be concluded by the end of next August, and that the Egyptian market would soon witness great activity in terms of mergers and acquisitions.
Domty turned a profit of EGP 111.1m in the first half (1H) of 2022, compared to 1H 2021’s net loss of EGP 32.6m.
The company’s sales also increased to EGP 2.27bn, up from EGP 1.32bn.
