This Thursday, it will be two months since a possible takeover bid for Grifols by the founding family and the Brookfield investment fund was made public, which led the CNMV to automatically suspend its listing. The objective of this operation is none other than to take over the entire capital of the company and delist it from the stock exchange.
During this period there has been speculation with a wide range of prices, from the 10 euros that existed in recent times and that were suggested by the Canadian fund to the 17-18 that some of the funds present in the shares of the Catalan company would be expected to ask.
At the same time, during this period, some experts pointed out that potential buyers they should pay the same amount for Class A shares and Class B shares, which are those which do not have voting rights and which, consequently, have always been listed at a discount compared to those which do have them.
Although this will not be fully confirmed in the event that this offer is finally formalized, it would be the clearest explanation regarding the evolution of these two actions in the last two months and that is that the main title gets just over 10% against nearly 30% what the high school does, which is almost triple what is listed on the Ibex 35.
For the investor, this gap that has widened between the performance of one share and the other over the past two months has meant that the potential of the share with voting rights has more than doubled compared to the remaining share, which only offers 30% of the way up to your average indicative price against 70% which maintains the first for the next 12 months.
Meanwhile, the company’s usual operations have not slowed down either, as it has presented its results for the first half of the year. “The improvement has continued, but despite this, the current buyout process and news of poor accounting practices have meant that the results remain in the background,” they explain from Renta 4.
“As for the results, they are in line with the achievement of their objectives thanks also to the decrease in the cost of plasma, the product mix and the operating leverage, which is reduced to 5.5 times and they will be able to achieve a growth of 7% in revenues, the 1,800 million ebitda and the debt at 4.5 times until the end of the year”, they conclude in Renta 4.
As for analysts’ recommendations, the two stocks represent 70% of the total recommendations for taking positions. There are also those who think it is better to stay away from this stock that, without a doubt, has been the undisputed protagonist of the year on the Spanish stock market. “The results have been good, but they are losing interest because they expect Brookfield to present a takeover bid and for the price to be known, while waiting for us to reiterate our sell vision,” Bankinter points out.
JP Morgan reduces its position to less than 3%
This Monday, it was announced that the North American bank JP Morgan had reduced its position in Grifols. below 3% after learning that Brookfield is in contact with several sovereign funds to participate in the takeover bid for Grifols. It should be remembered that in addition to the Grifols family through various financial instruments, the main shareholders of the Catalan company are Capital Group, Deutsche Bank, BlackRock, BNP, Vanguard and Norges, among others.
