Shareholders of Seprod and management and directors are in for an early Christmas present as Facey Group on Behalf of the International Finance Corporation offers 91,914,894 shares for sale at a price well below the level the stock has been trading at in recent times.
The offer is being made to the public but 55 million shares are reserved for staff, managers, executives, directors and former directors and shareholders of Seprod including Facey Consumer staff.
The offer is at a discounted price of $23.99. Last week the stock traded as high as $62 as limited selling of the stock in the market led investors to bid the price up to acquire some that were on sale, but pulled back to $49.50 on Friday and traded at $39 on Tuesday as investors reacted to the offer.
Up to 30 million shares are reserved for staff, managers, executives, directors and former directors of the Company and its subsidiaries. 15 million shares are reserved Shares for shareholders of the company (with JCSD accounts) as at August 31 and 10 million shares are reserved for the Lead Broker.
According to a spoke person for the Facey Group, the shares are a part of the shares that were acquired when the Company has reached an agreement with Seprod to acquire the consumer business consisting of distribution of consumer and pharmaceutical products in Jamaica earlier in the year. As part of that arrangement, Facey Group holding in Seprod was restricted to less than 50 percent and the shares being offered for sale was held as nominee on
behalf of International Finance Corporation who had invested in the group as a part of an agreement for them to continue to recover their investment when an IPO was effected. The shares were priced at the time they were initially issued when they were trading at $28, IC Insider.com was advised.
For the six months ended June 2018, Seprod generated revenues of $10.44 billion, an increase of $2.07 billion or 25 percent over the corresponding period in 2017. Net profit increased 29 percent for the period to $598 million in the 2017 period. The 2018 results are bolstered by the transfer of the former Jamaican dairy operations of Nestle within the Group effective January, this year.
The directors’ report stated that, “had these operations been included in the Group’s results in 2017, the increase in revenues for the six months ended 30 June 2018 would have been $1.20 billion or 13 percent and the increase in net profit would have been $77 million or 15 percent.”
For the June quarter, revenues rose 33 percent to $5.48 billion with gross profit rising sharply to 36 percent from 24 percent in 2017, with gross profit hitting $1.96 billion and profit after tax coming in at $325 million attributable to Seprod’s shareholders, 37 percent ahead of the 2017 out turn.
Based on the expansion of Seprod foot print and new ventures recently entered into, the future of the group seems solid and this could be bettered if they can put the ongoing losses of sugar behind them.