NCB finally feeling the love, but postpones GHL wedding again
Published:Tuesday | February 6, 2018 | 12:00 AM
NCB Financial Group, led by Patrick Hylton, has extended its offer for Guardian Holdings shares by another three weeks, but says the offer is already oversubscribed.
The transaction still requires approval from the Central Bank of Trinidad & Tobago, NCB said in a market filing.
The Jamaican bank, which is bidding for additional shares in the Trinidadian insurance conglomerate through NCB Global Holdings Limited, says subscriptions to the offer, as of last Thursday, were sufficient to push its holdings to 67 per cent, assuming none of the tenders are withdrawn as allowed under the offer.
NCB Financial already owns 29.99 per cent of Guardian Holdings, or 69.547 million shares, and its takeover offer was meant to grow its holdings to 62 per cent, which requires the acquisition of another 74.23 million GHL shares.
In a statement from NCB Financial's corporate secretary Dave Garcia, the bank said the offer remains oversubscribed at the new closing date, February 23, it would prorate acceptance of the shares offered up by minority owners. This is seen as an indication that NCB does not intend to upsize the original offer.
NCB says CBTT is the only outstanding regulator left to sign off on the transaction.
"The offerer is restricted from taking up any GHL shares until such time as all approvals are obtained," the bank said, in explanation of its second extension of the closing date.
The NCB bid is valued at US$174 million or US$2.35
per share.