Johannesburg - Servest Holdings shareholders yesterday unanimously approved the R173 million sale of its investment in Servest Limited to a consortium led by AMB Private Equity Partners and Servest management.
The approval entailed Servest Holdings disposing of its entire investment in Servest Ltd to a company called Main Street 78, a subsidiary of AMB Private Equity Partners.
Main Street 78 will acquire from Servest the issued share capital, comprising 300 shares of R1 each, for R12.6 million.
It will also acquire the R137.1 million related to Servest claims on a loan account against Servest Holdings. Servest's rights to shares in Servest Ltd would be acquired for R22.9 million.
Servest said the rationale for the sale was to give minority shareholders an opportunity to realise their investment at a premium to recent market prices.
The transaction will result in the delisting of Servest Holdings.
Kenton Fine, the chief executive of Servest, said credit must be given to Bidvest for not making a counteroffer. "Bidvest did ensure that the best possible transaction occurred," he said.
Fine said the management of Servest had work hard to ensure that the risk related to shareholders was eliminated.
"We want to get on with running our business. We had expectations to fulfil and thankfully we can now apply ourselves 100 percent to business, not to issues related to the uncertainty of the business," he said.
Brian Joffe, Bidvest's executive chairman, said it did not make a bid because "based on the information given to us we didn't see value in Servest".
Bidvest's financial results to June included an announcement that "the company had written down its 28 percent investment in Servest Holdings by about R10 million to reflect a value of 89c a Servest share".
Servest was untraded yesterday. It previously closed at 85c. Bidvest closed 26c up at R43.