Tuesday, Jun 04, 2013
(This article was first published on Monday.)
BEIRUT (Zawya Dow Jones)--Kuwait's Manafae Investment Co. (MANAFAE.KW) said that its board considers the price offered by Bahrain's United Gulf Bank (UGB.BH) to acquire the shares it doesn't already hold in the company, to be "unfair"
UGB has offered to buy the shares at 60 Kuwaiti fils ($0.21) each while Protiviti, an independent business consulting firm, has evaluated the share's fair price as at the end of March at 82 fils, the shariah-compliant investment firm said in a statement posted on the Kuwait bourse website on Sunday.
Manafae's shares are trading -1.5% at 67 fils on Monday.
The board added that its recommendation wasn't binding on the shareholders who could decide for themselves whether to sell the shares or not.
UGB said last week that Kuwait's Capital Markets Authority has approved its offer to acquire the remaining shares that it doesn't already own in Manafae. The bank's consolidated stake in the company is 30.52%, according to a UGB disclosure in February.
UGB is the merchant banking arm of Kuwait's Kipco Group which is one of the largest diversified holdings in the Middle East and North Africa region.
UGB and Kuwait's Burgan Bank (BURG.KW)--another unit of Kipco--said last week that they have secured the regulators' approval to acquire major stakes in Malta's FIMBank.
Write to Shikrallah Nakhoul at shikrallah@zawya.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
04-06-13 0345GMT
