FourWorld Capital Management, a company seeking investment opportunities based on perceived inconsistencies in tax, legal and regulatory matters, has widened its campaign against Euronav’s takeover by the Saverys family.
After filing a complaint against the Saverys’ mandatory offer for Euronav shares in the US — as TradeWinds reported last week — FourWorld has now challenged a parallel mandatory offer for Euronav shares listed in Brussels.
“The complaint seeks, mainly for [Saverys firm] CMB to adjust the bid price, taking into account alleged special benefits that would have been granted to Frontline on top of the cash purchase price paid by CMB for its shares of the company,” New York and Brussels-listed Euronav said.
CMB said the suit has been filed at the Market Court in Belgium.
“The request does not indicate what this higher price should be,” CMB said.
The shipowner explained that “in the unlikely event” FourWorld succeeds in having the price raised after the bid has closed, the increase will also apply to shareholders who have already tendered their stock.
The Saverys company also said that to address some of the points raised in the US complaint, at CMB’s request, Euronav has voluntarily made additional documents available on its website.
“CMB reiterates that the proceeding is without merit and intends to vigorously defend against it,” the company added.
CMB launched a mandatory bid for the remaining shares in VLCC and suezmax specialist Euronav earlier in February, following the acquisition of Frontline’s stake, which lifted CMB’s ownership of Euronav to 57%.
Since that deal, FourWorld increased its own stake in Euronav from just under 1% to 2.41% by acquiring at least 3.13m shares for a total price of $55.8m.
According to CMB, FourWorld’s representative had every opportunity to raise any objections at Euronav’s recent shareholder meetings, during which the supervisory board provided detailed responses.
