"Ameropa" now owns 96% of "Azomureş" and can take the company private

"Ameropa Holding" has come to own 96.43% of the shares of "Azomureş" (symbol: AZO), following the public takeover bid which expired yesterday, exceeding the 95% threshold which allows it to legally request that the company be delisted.

In the takeover bid, "Pelican Fertilizers", owned by "Ameropa", bought 108.18 million shares of AZO, at a price of 2.22 lei/unit.

At the end of yesterday's session, the shares of AZO were trading at 1.971 lei/unit, 11.2% below the level of the public takeover bid.

The public takeover bid began on June 5th and was intended to allow "Pelican Fertilizers" to takeover a stake of up to 126.89 million shares issued by "Azomureş", representing 24.123% of the share capital of the company.

The largest seller in the offering was the Proprietatea Fund, who sold 11.12% of Azomureş, in exchange for 130 million lei (29.1 million Euros), according to Mediafax.

In March, through "Pelican Fertilizers", "Ameropa Holding" acquired "Eurofert Investments" and "Azomureş Holdings", which together own 75.8% of the shares of "Azomureş".

At the end of March, "Ameropa" announced it would invest 200 million dollars over the next four years, into the retooling of the installations on the "Azomureş" platform, in order to reduce the environmental impact and to make the production of fertilizer more efficient, according to a press release sent by the company.

The "Azomureş" plant has earned a profit of 46.5 million lei, in Q1, up 5% over last year's similar period, as turnover increased 9%, to 446.4 million lei.

Ameropa also owns "Ameropa Grains" Constanta, formerly Comcereal Constanta, which it has already delisted from the Rasdaq market.