Fairfax drops plan to buy PPC stake
This leaves just Swiss building materials group LafargeHolcim as PPC's sole remaining bidder following Dublin-based CRH's announcement on 7 December that it had decided not to make an offer after doing an initial due diligence.
On 6 October, Nigerian cement producer Dangote announced that it had decided to terminate talks with PPC.
PPC advised shareholders on 11 November to reject Fairfax's R5.75 per share offer, which was made in September when its share price was about R5.50.
Interest from various suitors has seen PPC's share price rebound from a low of R3.46 in August following the resignation of CEO Darryll Castle to a high of R7.68 in November.
"PPC shareholders are hereby advised that on December 8, the independent board received Fairfax's formal notification that it will not proceed with the partial offer and that, accordingly, the Fairfax partial offer circular will not be posted to PPC shareholders," Monday's statement said.
Conditions that Fairfax had set on its proposed offer included PPC agreeing to merge with Afrisam, and its R5.75 per share offer was limited to R2bn worth of shares being bought.
On 27 October, PPC and LafargeHolcim issued a statement saying the Swiss group "contemplates a combination of certain African assets, a partial cash offer and a special dividend".
Source: BDpro