M&R buyout offer rejected

The buyout bid from Germany’s Aton for Murray & Roberts (M&R) could be in doubt after the fourth-largest shareholder in the South African engineering and construction company rejected their offer.

Financial services conglomerate Old Mutual holds about 5% of M&R and its board snubbed the offer from its biggest shareholder, Aton, a company owned by German investor Lutz Helmig.

“The offer of R15 per share is below what we believe is fair value. As a result we won’t be committing to sell into this price,” Brian Pyle, an analyst at Old Mutual’s equity investment arm, said.

M&R has rejected Aton’s buyout offer as “opportunistic” and poor value for shareholders. Aton responded by saying it would wait to hear from shareholders as the offer was “not subject to due diligence and its only condition is obtaining 50% plus one share”.

Aton said it has the backing of M&R’s third largest shareholder, Allan Gray, representing a stake of about 11%.

The Public Investment Corporation (PIC), the company’s second largest shareholder, said it could not comment on the bid prior to voting. “The PIC’s environmental, social and governance policy for listed investments prohibits us from publicly expressing a view before voting takes place,” Deon Botha, PIC’s head of corporate affairs, said. –