International Container Terminal Services bids Portek sayonara
By JOYCE HOOI
(SINGAPORE) The final round went to the Japanese yesterday as International Container Terminal Services Inc (ICTSI) withdrew its bid for Portek International in the face of Mitsui & Co’s higher one.
‘We have conducted our offer in a manner that is fair and open to all shareholders. Whilst we continue to view Portek as an attractive business, we are unfortunately unable to proceed further in light of the current circumstances. We believe the early termination of our offer will provide shareholders with more clarity,’ said Enrique K Razon, Jr, chairman of ICTSI in a statement yesterday.
As part of the termination of the offer, the Filipino terminal operator will return the shares of Portek shareholders who had accepted its offer.
ICTSI will also sell the Portek shares that it bought on the open market to Mitsui in ‘due course’, it said. ICTSI currently holds about 16.93 per cent of Portek’s shares, which it had bought for average price of $1.19-$1.20 a share. Mitsui’s offer for Portek stands at $1.40 a share.
‘ICTSI will continue to look for attractive businesses elsewhere that provide similar growth and synergistic opportunities to the ICTSI Group for the long-term benefit of our shareholders’, Mr Razon said.
ICTSI’s withdrawal of its offer brings to an end the two-party courtship of Portek that started in June with ICTSI’s cash offer of $1.20 per share for Portek.
Following rumours of another interested party and silence on Portek’s part, Mitsui emerged as a second contender for the acquisition of Portek.
At $1.40 per share, Mitsui’s offer was 16.7 per cent higher than ICTSI’s and 50.5 per cent higher than Portek’s average closing price for the three months before Mitsui announced its offer.
Mitsui’s acquisition of Portek was almost a certainty when the offer was announced in mid-July. Several of Portek’s shareholders – including its chairman and founder Larry Lam – had given Mitsui an irrevocable undertaking to sell their shares to it at $1.40 per share. Collectively, the irrevocable undertakings had amounted to about 50.05 per cent of Portek’s shares, rendering the offer unconditional.
As of the end of last week, Mitsui held a 64.32 per cent share of Portek, from a combination of valid acceptances of its offer and its purchases on the open market. Portek’s counter closed unchanged at $1.40 yesterday.