Johannesburg - If an offer for Optimum Coal is made by a consortium including commodities trader Glencore and a
company owned by SA businessman
Cyril Ramaphosa, the price would not be
lower than R38 per share.
On Friday, Optimum Coal said that on September 1, it had been
announced that a consortium comprising Piruto, a wholly owned
subsidiary of Glencore International, and Lexshell 849, a
company wholly owned by Ramaphosa, had submitted a letter to the board
of directors of Optimum advising of its interest to acquire, directly or
indirectly, the majority of the issued ordinary share capital of
Optimum for a cash consideration of R34.00 per share.
Following the acquisition of certain additional Optimum shares
by a member of the consortium, Optimum had been informed that if the
proposed offer was made within a period of six months from September 6,
the offer consideration would not be lower than R38.00 per Optimum
share.
Glencore said on Thursday in a separate statement that it had
upped its stake in Optimum to 25.8% after it had purchased around 2.5
million shares at a price of R37.99 a share - more than the R34 per
share so far offered.
In addition, Optimum said that an alternative party referred
to in the announcement of September 1 had withdrawn its interest in
acquiring a controlling interest in Optimum.