Core shareholder in Nigeria's 7Up raises acquisition stake to 125 naira/share

Shareholders of Nigeria's Seven-Up Bottling Company are expected to meet in Lagos and vote at a court-ordered meeting on Thursday on the planned acquisition of minority stakes in the company by its core shareholder, Affeika S.A.
The meeting is expected to decide on the acceptability or otherwise of the planned buyout of minority stakes in the company by its core shareholder.
Already, Affeika S.A has raised the stake on the planned acquisition on the eve of the meeting in its bid to persuade dissenting shareholders to embrace the scheme.
The core shareholder, in a memo to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday, said it has revised upward its consideration for the scheme to 125 naira per share, compared with 112 naira a share initially offered last year.
The fresh offer represents a 22.6 percent premium to the last traded share price of the company on January 9, this year and 27.6 percent premium to the price on August 10, last year, prior date to the initial proposal.
In a document viewed by GFD, the offer covers 26.78 percent of the company’s issued share capital.
If the proposal is successful, the company is expected to delist its shares from the NSE in preparatory for a financial restructuring of the loss-making venture.
About six years ago, Nigerian Bottling Company, the maker of Coca-Cola delisted from the exchange, after Coca-Cola Hellenic (CCH), the core stakeholders with 66.4 percent control offered a buy-out of the minority shareholders.
SBC has been running losses for some time, while the planned acquisition was intended to restructure the company. Sources said delisting the firm from the stock exchange after the buyout would be “logical”.

Seven-Up reported a net loss of ₦10.7bn for the full year ended 31 March 2017, and the losses have continued into the first-half of 2017/2018 financial year, recording ₦6.2bn ($17 million) in loss.