An overwhelming majority of the 8,000 individual private shareholders in GO plc have turned down an offer from Tunisia’s major telecoms company to buy their shares.

According to an official company announcement, issued by GO’s company secretary Francis Galea Salomone, by the end of the acceptance period, last Friday, the collecting and paying agent of the bid “received acceptances in respect of 66,281,050 shares in the company, amounting to 65.5 per cent of the entire issued share capital of the company”.

This means that apart from Dubai’s Emirates International Communications (EIT), which has sold all its shareholding (60,786,292 shares), only an additional 5.4 million shares have been sold to TT from the over 40 million available.

If the deal goes through, as it still needs to satisfy a number of regulatory conditions, TT will only acquire 65 per cent of the company while the rest will remain under the ownership of private shareholders.

Since TT had made an offer of €2.87 per share, it means that TT is now expected to pay some €190 million to acquire its majority shareholding in the company.

While TT CEO, Nizar Bouguila said that he was “delighted with the results of the offer”, various stockbrokers described the result as “disappointing” as more private shareholders were expected to buy into the deal.

“It is surely not a vote of confidence in TT,” a leading stockbroker told the Times of Malta.

“Although many were doubtful of this deal, we were expecting a much better take up. However, since until the offer of €2.87 per share was made, GO was trading on the stock exchange at €3.45 per share, many decided against the offer,” he said.

On the other hand, stockbrokers admitted that the decision of the majority of private shareholders can also be given a different interpretation.

“Since the offer was not good, many thought that it will be better to hold on to their shares as they see future potential in getting a better value for their shares.”

“By keeping their shares tradable on the stock exchange, this can be interpreted as a sign of shareholders’ confidence that GO can continue to prosper even under the Tunisians,” another financial analyst said.

TT’s CEO said that while it was important that the minority shareholders who wished to take the opportunity to participate in the offer were able to do so, “it has always been our intention to have a strong, supportive local shareholder base and that GO retains its status as a distinct Maltese listed company”.

The selection by GO to sell to Tunisie Telecom is shrouded in controversy as GO’s major shareholders, EIT, are also the only private shareholder in TT. The rest of the shares are held by the Tunisian government. The opposition in the Tunisian Parliament has cried foul over the deal, which they say is full of conflicts of interest and is instigated by EIT to serve their purposes.

TT’s financial state is not that rosy as the company has registered losses of some €33 million for 2015 and has proposed plans to list on the stock exchange.

The Malta Communications Authority (MCA) is currently also looking into the takeover bid to ascertain that all rules are being followed.

At the same time, both GO and TT have denied any conflict of interest and declared that EIT did not participate in the decision even through GO’s chairman Deepak Padmanabhan also sits on TT’s board.

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