LJUBLJANA (Slovenia), June 14 (SeeNews) – Luxembourg-based Anatol S .a. r. l. will not launch a takeover bid for the acquisition of Slovenian chemicals producer Cinkarna Celje [LJE:CICG], despite earlier announcing its intention to do so, the Slovenian company said on Thursday.
The management board of Cinkarna Celje was informed by email on June 14 that Anatol has revised its intention to take over the company's shares, the chemicals producer said in a Ljubljana bourse filing.
Cinkarna Celje did not give any further information.
On June 4, Anatol said it intends to launch a takeover bid for all of the Cinkarna Celje shares with the financial support of the investment company KKR.
According to Slovenian media, Anatol changed its plans because it did not receive permission to carry out a due diligence in time.
Based on Cinkarna Celje's 2017 financial report, its biggest shareholder on December 31 was insurance company Modra zavarovalnica with a 20% stake.
At the time, Slovenia's ‘bad bank’, the Bank Assets Management Company, DUTB, owned 14.48%, while Slovenia's state holding company SDH had a 11.41% stake. Clearstream banking with a fiduciary account in Luxembourg held 4.13%.
On December 31, a total of 79.12% company shares were held by legal persons and 20.62% by physical persons. Cinkarna Celje also held 0.26% of its own shares.
Last June, Slovenia's ‘bad bank’, the Bank Assets Management Company (DUTB), cancelled the sale of Cinkarna Celje due to an inadequate response from potential buyers.
Prior to that, in August 2015, Slovenia's sovereign holding company SDH said the consortium of sellers has cancelled the sale of a 70.8% stake in Cinkarna Celje as the submitted bids fell short of expectations.
During the proceedings, important environmental issues emerged which had a strong impact on the competitiveness of the procedure and the number of tenders received, SDH said at the time. It pledged to look for solutions that would eliminate the identified issues and allow the sale of shares under better conditions.
Cinkarna Celje is one of the 15 enterprises slated for privatisation by the Slovenian government in 2013.
The company was established in 1873. Its core business is the production and marketing of titanium dioxide pigment.