Brookfield and the Grifols family advance in their public acquisition offer (takeover bid) on Grifols. The Canadian giant and the Catalan saga are studying the latest details of the future shareholder core, in which the investment group will have the majority of the capital of the blood derivatives firm. The next structure will unify the typology of shares, until now divided into A and B to distinguish political rights from economic ones, into a single type of title, according to financial sources consulted by ‘elEconomista.es’.
The decision changes the ‘status quo’ that the founding family has in the company until now, with 30.8% of the shares grouped only under type A, which give full economic and political rights. The Bs, on the other hand, do not have a vote. However, in the event of a takeover bid they have preferential economic rights and an exception is also established for which they can vote. These are securities held by financial shareholders, such as Europacific Growth Fund, Jefferies Financial Group and Rokos Global Macro Master Fund..
This distinction means that the founding family has around 35% of political rights compared to 30.8% of participation in the capital. With unification, this imbalance would be corrected.
The treatment of these titles has been one of the key battles in the negotiation so far. The Canadian fund had also requested to pay the same price for each share. lGrifols’ bylaws establish that both receive the same economic and political treatment in the event of a takeover bid, something that conditioned Brookfield’s offer, given that the shares with fewer political rights are quoted at a discount compared to the A shares (currently at 8.49 euros per share). Brookfield had no comment after being consulted. A spokesperson for the family and Grifols also declined to participate.
The market has shown its conviction in the offer in recent weeks. Grifols A shares closed yesterday, Thursday, at 10.66 euros, registering an increase of 8% since July 8, the day on which interest in a possible joint exclusion takeover emerged and was subsequently confirmed by the parties to the National Market Commission. Securities (CNMV). The company, however, has not yet recovered the range of between 14 and 15 euros in which the A shares were trading before Gotham City’s bearish attack in January.
The operation faces a decisive week. In recent days, Brookfield has asked the founding family for information about linked operations, according to ‘Bloomberg’ and this medium has been able to confirm this with market sources. Another aspect to address is the search for financing and the entry of potential partners in the transaction. Regarding this second aspect, the American media also published that Brookfield was holding conversations with different sovereign fundsincluding ADQ (United Arab Emirates) and GIC (Singapore).
The company, for its part, gave Brookfield access to its books last July, when it announced to the stock market supervisor that at the board of directors meeting it had appointed Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs as financial advisors. The three directors belonging to the Grifols family itself abstained from participating in this meeting, pointing out a “potential conflict of interest.”
The group reduces debt
Grifols closed the third quarter of the year with figures that invite optimism. The company earned 88 million euros until September, a figure that represents an increase of 102 million (9.1%) in relation to the 14 million it lost in the same period of 2023 thanks to the boost of 52 million obtained in the third quarter of 2024. On the other hand, the group’s debt, the pharmaceutical company’s main Achilles heel, was reduced by 188 million in the last three months, going from the 9,396 million reported in July to 9,208 million.
The EBITDA reported until September stands at 1,253 million euros. This figure causes the leverage ratio to rise to 6.1 times EBITDA. The pharmaceutical company corrected this indicator at the beginning of the year and assured that it would close the year at 4.5 times. However, the company has frozen the distribution of dividends until it manages to reduce this ratio to four times the EBITDA. “The company remains focused on strengthening its financial profile as reflected, in the third quarter, by the allocation of the entire €1.6 billion of proceeds from the sale of SRAAS assets to reduce the issuance of senior secured bonds maturing in 2025 and LTB loans maturing in 2027”they explain from Grifols.
The evolution of Grifols’ business is progressing positively this year in contrast to the numbers it has been reaping since the pandemic broke out. Both the plasma medicine business and the reduction in the price per liter of this raw material have caused turnover to increase compared to the previous year.. Specifically, Biopharma’s revenues grew by 9.9%, to 4,455 million euros. In addition, sales of the Diagnostics division increased 1.7% to 479 million in the first nine months of the year.
“I am proud of the good results obtained in the third quarter. Thanks to the entire team we have managed to drive growth, maintain disciplined cost control and advance our continuous improvement initiatives. With this work underway and our solid fundamentalswe continue to make progress in achieving our objectives for 2024″, says Nacho Abia, CEO of the group.
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