Johannesburg - Shares of Adcock Ingram [JSE:AIP] surged more than 4% in early trade on Friday on news top shareholder Bidvest Group is looking to raise its stake in the drugmaker.
Bidvest, a conglomerate with businesses ranging from mops to shipping, owns 34.5% of Adcock. Bidvest intends to increase that to more than 50%, according to a document from South Africa's competition regulator seen by Reuters on Thursday.
"The Bidvest bid has involved two stages. The second stage is to acquire further shares beyond the 34.5%, which presumably, depending on the take-up of the offer, would take Bidvest's holding to above 50%," the document said.
Bidvest chief executive Brian Joffe has been trying to take control of Adcock since March 2013, seeing a chance to turn around another underperformer and add painkillers to a wide variety of products.
Joffe went direct to Adcock shareholders in December last year with a R4bn cash offer for the initial 34.5%, sinking a rival bid from Chile's CFR Pharmaceuticals.
Adcock shares were up 4.7% at R51.28 at 09:25, while Bidvest shares were up 0.5% at R291.43.