January 10 (SeeNews) - Austrian company Panta Rhei Beratungs intends to purchase no more shares in Slovenian chemicals producer Melamin [LJSE:MKOG] after it increased its stake in the company to 33.29%, Slovenian media reported.
Under Slovenian law, Panta Rhei Beratungs is not required to launch a takeover bid for Melamin as it owns less than a third of the company's voting rights and has no intention of further increasing its stake but will monitor Melamin's development, the STA news agency quoted Martin Wodak, owner of a company that holds 10% interest in Panta Rhei Beratungs, as saying on Saturday.
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Panta Rhei Beratungs acquired the additional stake because it considers that Melamin is an attractive investment and is interested in its positive development, Wodak noted.
Last week, the Bank Assets Management Company (BAMC), Slovenia's 'bad bank', sold its 30.62% shareholding interest in Melamin to Panta Rhei Beratungs, in which Slovenian biotechnology company AbPhage holds a 90% stake.
The company will face an extremely unfavourable business environment in 2022, due to the fluctuations in the price of raw materials, daily Dolenjski List quoted its director, Srecko Stefanic, as saying.
"If prices calm down in the second half of the year and then do not fall drastically, and if there are no significant shutdowns of production activity by our customers due to the re-emergence of the coronavirus pandemic, we expect slightly higher sales in terms of value and volume compared to 2021," Stefanic noted.
Melamin recorded a net profit of 2.2 million euro ($2.5 million) in the first half of 2021, up 88% on the year, while net sales revenue went up 43% to 32.3 million euro, according to the most recent data available.
BAMC became the largest shareholder in Melamin in 2020 by taking over the stake of 30.62% owned by insolvent Ljubljana-based NFD Holding.
($ = 0.88453 euro)