IN BRIEF: Empresaria extends deadline as takeover offer gets majority
Empresaria Group PLC - Crawley, England-based staffing provider in the professional, IT, healthcare, property and commercial sectors - Planmatics Ltd has now received support for its indicative takeover offer from holders of 57% of the shares in Empresaria. This is after Hendrik van Heijst and connected entities agreed to accept the possible offer for their 29.08% stake and Anthony Martin for his 27.93% holding. Planmatics is a new entity controlled by Peter Gregory, Nigel Marsh and Ashok Vithlani, the last of whom is a director and shareholder in Empresaria Offshore Services subsidiary Manpower Solutions Pvt Ltd. Empresaria says it continues to believe the offer, received at the beginning of May, "fundamentally undervalues the company and its prospects". The board continues to explore other options to realise value for shareholders. Despite this, Empresaria extends the deadline for Planmatics to state a firm intention to make a takeover offer to July 30 from Wednesday. Planmatics is offering 10 pence in cash per Empresaria share plus 50p nominal per share in unsecured loan notes, which would be redeemable for cash three years after the completion of the takeover and accrue an annual interest rate of 2.6%. Empresaria says the additional time allows the bidders to improve their offer. Read More