American firm gets ten more days to sell offer to Unga shareholders

The twists and turns in the sale of Unga Group took on a new angle after closing date was extended by 10 days over failure to reach some shareholders.

Seabord has managed to convince the Capital Markets Authority to extend the deadline claiming some shareholders had not seen the offer documents.

The American firm that has teamed up with Victus Ltd associated with the family of the late Mr Philip Ndegwa, a former Central Bank governor said yesterday that during the 50 days Seaboard has received numerous queries from Unga shareholders with requests for resubmission of the Offer documents that were originally dispatched to them via post by the registrars.

They blamed this on changes in postal addresses and/or relocation of shareholders whose new details are not updated with the Central Depository and Settlement Corporation.

Sale of Unga has been dominated by the circus surrounding the offer to take over of Unga group from minority shareholders after the American firm offered to buy the small shareholders for Sh40 a share.

The acquisition has however faced an opposition which saw activity in the counter hit a high of Sh44 but has now climbed down to Sh39.

Victus Ltd—which owns 38.5 million shares or 50.93 percent of the miller and is supporting the deal.

Seaboard Offer will now close at 5.00pm on Thursday 28th June 2018 under the same offer before suspension on the same day.

Overall the activity in the market was led by Kenya Airways (KQ Sh11.1) the biggest gainer in terms of share price a 9.9 percent.

The national carrier had announced it will issue 142.1 million shares currently worth Sh1.4 billion to its staff for free, reinstating its suspended employee share ownership plan (Esop).

Flame Tree Group (FTGH Sh3.60) continued to lose shine at the bourse with an 8.9 percent dip in share value.

Safaricom (SCOM Sh30.00) was the top mover trading 7.3 million shares.