Category: Equity

The two Brazilian investors that launched a bid for control of Diagnosticos da America (DASA) last month have extended the window for the tender offer and scrapped a minimum acquisition limit. Edson de Godoy Bueno and Dulce Pugliese de Godoy Bueno, who own 23.59% of the Brazilian medical service provider, opened a voluntary tender offer for the remainder of the company through investment vehicle Cromossomo Participacoes. Cromossomo extended its offer to February 4 and removed the minimum acquisition amount set in December, of 26.41% of the firm plus one share, DASA said on Wednesday. The firm is offering to buy the shares at BRL15 ($6.3) per share. That is a 12.44% premium to the closing price on December 20, and a 22.9% premium to the 90-day volume weighted average price before that. The shares closed at BRL14.9 on Wednesday. BTG Pactual is managing the deal. DASA was last in the capital markets in October, when it sold a BRL450m 2018 debenture. DASA reported gross revenues of BRL716.7m in the third quarter.

Chilean shipping firm Compania Sud Americana de Vapores (CSAV) is set to consult shareholders on a capital raise after agreeing to take a 30% stake in Hapag-Lloyd under a non-binding agreement announced on Wednesday. The pair plans to raise €740m ($1bn) of capital in two transactions. CSAV will subscribe €259m of the first capital raise, to be executed within 100 days of the agreement being finalized, which will give it a stake of close to 34% in the German shipper. The Chilean firm said it was looking at calling a shareholders’ meeting to raise cash to subscribe to the Hapag deal, as well as for $200m to buy seven new container ships. CSAV, which will become Hapag’s largest shareholder, will sign a control agreement with Hapag’s other owners. The new entity will be the world’s fourth-largest shipper with combined annual revenues of close to $12bn. The memorandum of understanding between the two firms is preliminary, and subject to due diligence and regulatory approval.

The director general of Mexico’s stock exchange has defended the organization’s move to join the integrated Latin American market, Mila, despite low trading on the platform and his Brazilian counterpart’s decision to stay out. “As we become more efficient at attracting investors’ attention through this market, we will have greater opportunities to deepen its operation,” Pedro Zorrilla said in an interview in the January/February issue of LatinFinance. “So, regardless of the starting point in terms of liquidity or depth, all the markets are advancing. There’s more opportunity as part of Mila, than outside it.” Mexico’s financial reform, approved by its Congress in November, opened the way for the exchange to join Mila. The integration will create Latin America’s largest bourse by market capitalization, at over $1tn. Still, trading across the three exchanges has been minimal since its inception. “The truth is that Mila hasn’t traded much,” says Jorge Errazuriz, managing partner at BTG Pactual Chile. In October, less than $6 million of stock was sold across the platform. Buying and selling on Santiago’s stock exchange alone was nearly three times the deal flow on Mila’s infrastructure. Brazil’s BM&FBovespa considered merging with Mila but decided against it because of the disparity in scale. Nonetheless, the incorporation of Mexico will broaden Mila’s scope, and encourage a greater flow of investment, says Jose Antonio Martinez, chief executive of the Santiago stock exchange. “Mexico is the second largest market in Latin America after Brazil, which means it will bring to Mila greater liquidity, a larger number of participants and, of course, it will broaden the range of financing options for our issuers, trading options for our intermediaries, and the range of instruments for our investors,” he said. The full article is online here http://www.latinfinance.com/Article/3296682/Regional-Intergration-Mila-Thinking-big.html

Brazilian brokerage XP Investimentos plans to open an office in Miami in the first half of the year, a company source said. The office will serve investors from Brazil and LatAm investing in the US and vice versa. XP Investimentos has about 500 offices in 140 cities in Brazil. The new office in Miami is expected to open under the XP Securities label.

Chilean oil and gas explorer Geopark said on Tuesday it planned to sell 20m shares at $8 to $10 each in an SEC-registered IPO that it first flagged last year. BTG Pactual, Itau and JPMorgan are lead managers on the offering, which is to facilitate future access to international equity markets and finance potential acquisitions in South America.

A follow-on equity sale for Brazilian vehicle part maker Fras-le could raise BRL247.6m to BRL294.3m, excluding greenshoe or hot issue allocations. The firm plans to use the funds for acquisitions, either in Brazil or abroad. The firm said on Friday that it expects to price the deal at BRL5.3 to BRL6.3 per share. It is offering 34.5m primary shares, and six shareholders are offering 12.2m in a secondary offering. Shareholders participating in the secondary sale are pension funds Previ and Petros which hold 22.5% and 8.48% of the firm, respectively, three Maua investment funds (5.25%), and VBI, another fund (0.66%). After the sale, if the overallotment allocations are not used, Previ will hold 11.2%, Petros, 4.22%, Maua, 2.83%, VBI 0.09%. The Randon group is Fras-le’s largest shareholder, holding 46.3% of the firm. It has agreed to pick up at least 45.1% of the shares sold, which will give it a 50.1% stake after the sale. Banco Votorantim and Santander have been hired to manage. The specialist in brake parts exports to about 80 countries and reported Ebitda of BRL84.9m in the 9 months to September 30. Fras-le’s shares, which trade in low volumes, closed at BRL5.65 on Monday. The deal is scheduled to be priced on February 7.

Low-cost airline Viva Aerobus filed for an initial public offering on Mexico’s stock exchange Thursday. It has mandated Barclays as global coordinator, with Banorte-Ixe and HSBC local bookrunners. The transaction includes a secondary share sale by Mexican transport conglomerate IAMSA and three private investment vehicles controlled by airline investor Irelandia Aviation. The primary portion will go towards upgrading the fleet, paying debt and building working capital. The firm reported revenues of $217m in the first 9 months of 2013.

LQ Inversiones Financieras has mandated Citi as global coordinator and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BTG Pactual, and Deutsche Bank as bookrunners on the sale of 6.7bn shares in Banco de Chile. The company is roadshowing in Chile and Brazil next week, and London and the US the following week. The deal is set to be priced on January 28 according to an SEC prospectus filed on Tuesday. The share sale would trim LQIF’s holdings in the Chilean lender to 51%, from 58.4%. The bank’s American Depositary Shares — equal to 600 common shares — closed at $81.07 each on Tuesday. Banco de Chile is the country’s largest lender, with a 19.3% market share. It reported assets of CLP25,261bn ($50.1bn) at the end of the third quarter.

Brazilian agribusiness firm Kepler Weber is tussling with development bank BNDES over the value of equity warrants, and the extent to which existing shareholders are set to be diluted when they are exercised. Kepler, which manufactures grain production equipment, sold 113,321 debentures and warrants to BNDESPar in 2007. The firm says warrant each should be worth 25.4 Kepler shares on conversion, which would dilute shareholders by 9.9%. BNDESPar calculates it should get 41 shares, which would result in a 15.1% dilution. BNDESPar owns more than 99% of the firm’s debentures, which in turn account for around half of Kepler’s outstanding debt, says Felipe Fontes, investor relations official at the firm. Kepler reported net revenues of BRL19.8m in the third quarter. Pension fund Previ and Banco do Brasil Investimentos are the largest shareholders in the firm, with 17.6% and 17.5%, respectively. The firm’s shares were trading at BRL37.17 apiece on Monday, down from BRL41.09 on January 2.

Some 44 international investors subscribed to CVC Brasil Operadora e Agencia de Viagens December IPO, taking slightly less than half the deal, the firm said on Friday. International accounts took 18.8m shares, some 48% of the total sold. The travel agency IPO brought in BRL621m ($236m) for the sellers, mainly comprising US private equity firm Carlyle and co-founder Guilherme Paulus. Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BTG Pactual, Itau, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley priced the shares at BRL16.00 each, below the BRL18 to BRL22 range.