Minverva bid is rejected as opportunistic
Minerva, owner of City development the Walbrook, yesterday fended off a takeover offer from one of its largest shareholders, slamming the offer as “woefully inadequate”.
South African shareholder Nathan Kirsh, who has built up a 29.9 per cent in the company, yesterday launched an unsolicited 50p a share offer for Minerva, valuing the business at some £84.5m.
Kirsh said the offer was at a 30.7 premium to Minerva’s closing price on Monday. But Minerva, which is being advised by investment bank Greenhill, immediately rejected the bid as “unattractive” and “opportunistic”.
Kirsh’s offer is also substantially lower than the 160p-a-share that Dubai Limitless offered in July. That bid was knocked back after it failed to secure the backing of Minerva’s lenders.
Chief executive Salmaan Hasan said: “We believe that as a business we have done some serious heavy lifting to put us in a strong position and we have some of the only office schemes in development in a very constricted City market.”
Minerva said that it had received an offer for its Wigmore Street headquarters around ten per cent higher than its July valuation of £34m, and that it had several parties interested in its St Botolph and Walbrook sites.
In September the group successfully refinanced £812m of debt, allaying concerns that it might breach its covenants.
Hasan also pointed to the recent rally in the property market and improved confidence, saying that 77-year-old Kirsh’s offer in did not take into account the future upside.