£843,000 offer is fair value for 37.8% of Atlantic Sapphire shares, says Pareto
Bank's assessment takes into account salmon farmer's financial situation and funding needs
A mandatory offer made by Atlantic Sapphire’s majority owner to buy the outstanding shares in the Florida land-based salmon farmer reflects a fair value of the company from a financial pint of view, investment bank Pareto Securities has said.
Coral HoldCo AS was formed by five companies who jointly owned 62.2% of Atlantic Sapphire (22,301,236 shares) and have now transferred their equity to Coral HoldCo. As part of an agreed refinancing of Atlantic Sapphire, Coral HoldCo has made a mandatory offer of NOK 0.80 (£0.062) per share for the 13,552,809 shares it doesn’t own. If Coral HoldCo acquires the outstanding shares, it will apply to delist from the stock exchange and take the company into private ownership.
Coral HoldCo’s offer is worth NOK 10.8 million (£843,000) and values the total issued share capital in Atlantic Sapphire at NOK 28.7m (£2.24m).
Independent view
Pareto was chosen by the Norwegian Financial Supervisory Authority (HFSA) as an independent expert to provide a statement about the offer on behalf of Atlantic Sapphire.
“The evaluation of the Mandatory Offer has been made on objective criteria to the extent possible, based on generally accepted and recognised valuation methods that have been deemed necessary and applicable,” Pareto said in the statement.
It added: “In our assessment, we have inter alia considered [Atlantic Sapphire’s] financial situation and announced funding need, the fact that no alternative financing proposals emerged despite the company openly seeking capital for more than three months, and the offer price of NOK 0.80 per share relative to the subscription price of NOK 0.10 per share in the refinancing and to prevailing trading levels.”
Not a recommendation
The investment bank points out that its statement “does not constitute a recommendation to the public shareholders to accept or reject the mandatory offer, as Pareto’s mandate is limited to an assessment of the mandatory offer from a financial point of view, and each shareholder’s decision will depend on individual circumstances which Pareto is not in a position to assess”.
“Pareto is, based on the evaluation described above, of the opinion that the mandatory offer reflects a fair value of the company from a financial point of view as of the date of this statement.”
