Hemas subsidiary Morison offers to go private

Hemas PLC’s pharmaceutical manufacturer and importer, Morison PLC, will go private subject to necessary shareholder and regulatory approvals.
Morison’s director board has resolved to delist the company’s shares from the official list of the Colombo Stock Exchange, a stock exchange filing by the company said last Friday.

Although the company didn’t specify reasons for the delisting, it appeared that the exercise is carried out to comply with the continuous public float requirements imposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.  Accordingly, the majority shareholder of Morison, Hemas Manufacturing (Pvt) Ltd., has expressed interest to purchase the remaining voting and non-voting Morison shares from shareholders who may wish to divest them.

Hemas manufacturing has offered to buy a voting share for Rs.850 and a non-voting share for Rs.700. Morison voting share was last traded at Rs.625 and non-voting at Rs.531.70.

As at June 30, 2018, Hemas group had over 90 percent holding of both voting and non-voting shares of Morison.

The public free floats as on same date stood at 9.40 percent (voting) and 9.27 (non-voting).

For the April-June quarter (1Q19), Morison recorded a net profit of Rs.76.6 million, down 35 percent year-on-year (YoY) on revenue of Rs.844.3 million, down 6 percent.