Tiger: Fewer shares for BEE deal

Cape Town - On Friday Tiger Brands announced a restructured second phase to its empowerment deal. This follows shareholders' rejection of the original proposal.

In a Sens statement the company explained that the initial proposal had been for 10% of the company's issued shares in Mapitso Consortium Investments to be held as a special company for empowerment purposes.

According to the statement, before the start of the recent shareholders meeting it had become clear that the proposed transfer of 10% of Tiger Brands' shares did not carry the required approval by 75% of all shareholders, and the proposal was therefore withdrawn.

The deal has been revised and the new recommendation is that 9.09% of the company's shares be transferred in the second phase of the empowerment transaction.

The result would be that Brimstone Investment's stake in Tiger Brands will comprise 1.01% of Tiger Brands' total shareholding, while the entire stake of the Tiger Brands Black Managers Trust will be 4.03%.

This includes the shares acquired in the first phase of the deal.

Other beneficiaries from the new proposed second stage of Tiger Brands' empowerment transaction are the Tiger Brands General Staff Share Trust, which will own 1.86% of Tiger Brands' issued shares, and the Tiger Brands Foundation, which will have 5.05%.

The company says the proposed second phase implies that 28.9% of its shareholding will be in black hands - if special investments and foreign operations are excluded when calculating its total issued shares.

The cost to the company of effecting the transaction is estimated at R299.6m. This represents 1.2% of Tiger Brands' mooted R25.8bn market value.

Tiger Brands' share price closed 1.28% down at R154.06 on Friday. In recent months it has risen steadily and since April has appreciated more than 12%.

- Sake24.com

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