Light & Power Holdings (L&PH) shareholders, now weighing a hefty $25.70 per share takeover offer from Canadian energy company Emera, have been told their shares were really valued at $33.70 and they should not sell them at the lower offer.
Douglas Skeete, interim president of the Barbados Association of Corporate Shareholders, said yesterday that if shareholders accepted the Canadian company’s offer they would be robbing themselves.
His suggestion to shareholders was the opposite of what directors of L&PH were telling them.
The L&PH board – comprising Ian Carrington, Sir Henry Forde, Ernest Greaves, Richard Edghill, Andrew Gittens, Peter Williams, and three Emera employees – Wayne Crawley, Raymond Robinson and Chris Huskilson – has said the Emera offer was “fair and merits acceptance”.
According to the board: “Directors [having] had the benefit of the advice of an independent firm of expert valuers and have relied on their assessment and all other known circumstances including the current state of market conditions, locally and regionally, consider the price offered by Emera (Barbados) Holdings . . . to purchase all the remaining common shares of Light & Power Holdings Ltd, to be fair and merits acceptance.”
Emera’s cash offer – twice the current share price of $12 – will expire at 5 p.m on Monday but Skeete told the DAILY?NATION yesterday: “If this company really wants full ownership of Barbados Light & Power they will make a higher offer.
“The offer of $25.70 is definitely not the fair value and so shareholders should not give away what is a very valuable asset,” he added.
Citing a recent fair value assessment by accounting firm KPMG, which was ordered by L&PH directors and revealed at a meeting of the board last Monday, Skeete said that fair value was $33.70 per share.
