Grupo Argos, the takeover bid on which Gilinski did not want to bet more

A price of about 20% above the one that was negotiated on the Colombian Stock Exchange, offered by the Gilinski Group to acquire a minimum of 26% of the shares of Grupo Argos, however, It was not enough to captivate the partners of this infrastructure and cement holding company of Grupo Empresarial Antioqueño (GEA) so that they would sell in the takeover bid.

(They declare void takeover by the Argos Group).

Despite this, other factors also influenced the failure of the operation.
In the end, 2,300 of the 8,000 holders of the common and voting shares of Grupo Argos agreed to sell a total of 11.08% (73,466,106 species) of their titles at US$4.28 per share.

The Gilinski Group had proposed buying a minimum of 26% of the shares and a maximum of 32.5%, with which it would have achieved at least two seats on the Board of Directors, in its desire to advance as one of the largest shareholders and break the stock castling scheme that consists of having cross shares between the GEA companies.

(Gilinski did not reach half of the shares he was looking for in Grupo Argos).

By not agreeing to release the purchase minimums, that is, purchasing less than the proposed minimum, the Gilinski Group, through its subsidiary Nugil, did not accept those that were offered, which is why the Colombian Stock Exchange declared the operation void.
Yesterday, the Grupo Argos share on the Colombian Stock Exchange fell 3.56% after doing so at 7.4% on Wednesday.

PRICE AND PERCEPTION

Analysts consulted expressed different reasons why the operation was not carried out, ranging from a price that did not meet expectations, the possibility that the Gilinski Group, as it did with the previous takeover bids for Nutresa and Grupo Sura, would launch new calls for better prices, negligence of pension fund portfolio managers and even regional or political factors.

The financial and stock market analyst Andrés Moreno Jaramillo considers that the Gilinski Group was given a bad image about the intentions with the operation and that would have corresponded to regional and idiosyncratic factors.

He said that the pension funds “should have taken advantage of the proposed price to have registered a good result in the affiliates’ portfolio.”

The head of economic investigations of a bank said that the takeover bid was poorly planned from the beginning, since Jaime Gilinski does not have infrastructure within his business activities and what he wanted was to be on the Board of Directors and from there seek control in the GEA .

However, he anticipated that Gilinski would have already begun to carry out a purchase strategy in the market, without the need to launch takeover bids, in order to achieve part of what he intended with the takeover bid in the future.

For his part, Arnoldo Casas, Director of Investments at Credicorp Capital Asset Management, considers that “people interpreted that there is an evident interest in buying leveraged with the experience of Nutresa and Grupo Sura, but the fact that the takeover bid was declared void was a sign that the people who hoped to sell later in another more expensive takeover bid”.

However, he warned that The Gilinski Group can launch another takeover bid at a better price in dollars and more so with a high exchange rate like the one at the moment.

The minority shareholder of Grupo Argos, Gregorio Restrepo, who acquired small shares in the last year through the trii platform, presented a letter to the public in which he expresses his dissatisfaction with various facts that have surrounded the process of acquiring shares of the Gilinski Group.

In his communication, he highlighted that attempts have been made to undermine the reputation of the current and former directors of the GEA, and he considered it dangerous for the future of the business of the companies that conflicts arise between the shareholders, since in “these companies things are valued beyond money ”.

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