Exchange-Listed Companies
Anglo American is to acquire a 9.9% stake in Canada Nickel Company which owns the Crawford nickel project in Ontario, Canada. The undisclosed investment is part of Anglo’s approach to expand its nickel offering with additional battery-grade nickel for use in electric vehicles. Anglo will apply its FutureSmart Mining™ technologies to ore samples with the aim of assessing opportunities to improve processing recoveries and reduce the project’s overall energy, emission and water footprint.
Old Mutual asset manager Futuregrowth has invested in prop-tech startup platform Flow Living. Futuregrowth was the lead investor in the US$4,5 million pre-series A funding round alongside Kalon Ventures, Vunani, Endeavour, CRE Venture Capital among others.
Sanlam announced two deals at the end of last week. Through its subsidiary Sanlam Life, Sanlam will acquire a 26% interest in Capital Legacy by disposing of Sanlam Trust to Capital Legacy for R390 million in exchange for shares in Capital Legacy. It will also subscribe for further shares in Capital Legacy for R720 million in cash. Sanlam already has exposure to Capital Legacy through its 25% shareholding in Africa Rainbow Capital Financial Services Investments which itself holds (a diluted) 25% stake in Capital Legacy. Sanlam also announced the decision to acquire the remaining 38% stake in BrightRock; it first invested in the life insurer in 2017.
Thungela has announced a deal to acquire an 85% interest in the Ensham thermal coal operation in Queensland, Australia. The deal, implemented through a new company Sungela Holdings, comprises an equity investment of A$267 million and a mezzanine loan of A$68 million to the co-investors representing R4 billion. The stake will be acquired from Idemitsu with LX International holding the remaining shares.
Speculation regarding the possible sale of its subsidiary, PPC Zimbabwe for c. US$200m has been dismissed by PPC saying that it regularly receives unsolicited approaches for various parts of its businesses. Any developments on these unsolicited approaches it said, would be shared with the market via official channels. Nevertheless, the market responded positively with the share price up 21% on the rumours.
The proposed delisting of Premier Fishing and Brands from the JSE by majority shareholder African Equity Empowerment Investments (AEEI) announced in December has hit a regulatory snag – the JSE has advised AEEI that the deal constitutes a related party transaction. That is because AEEI is buying up the remaining 6.14% from minorities at R1.60 per share. Rather than delay the transaction – the circular must be updated – AEEI is considering replacing itself with Sekunjalo Investment Holdings as the offeror. Sekunjalo is the holding company of AEEI.
DealMakers is SA’s M&A publication.
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