The Saverys family-controlled Compagnie Maritime Belge (CMB) has cleared the first obstacle for the takeover of Euronav set by US investor FourWorld Capital Management.
In late February, funds managed by FourWorld filed a complaint in a US District Court regarding CMB’s offer to purchase all outstanding ordinary shares of Euronav from US holders.
The complaint alleged, among other things, that CMB disseminated materially false and misleading offering materials relating to the US offer. The complaint seeks, among other relief, an injunction restraining CMB from completing the US offer based on such offering materials and an award of damages in an unspecified amount.
CMB said on Thursday that the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York denied a motion for preliminary injunction filed by FourWorld. This means that the Belgian firm is not restrained from the US offer based on the disseminated offering materials. CMB officially launched a mandatory public takeover bid on all shares in Euronav last month.
This, however, is not the only attempt by FourWorld to stop CMB from a full takeover of Euronav as it filed another complaint with the Market Court in Belgium to stop CMB’s Belgian mandatory offer for all shares of the tanker giant.
The investment adviser firm requested the Market Court determine that the price of the mandatory offer was too low as it does not consider alleged special benefits that would have been granted to Frontline on top of the cash purchase price paid by CMB for its Euronav shares. The company also wants the court to order CMB to adjust the bid price considering the alleged special benefits.
For the sake of greater transparency, Euronav made additional documents available on its website in addition to the documents related to the transactions already made public.
In both cases, CMB said that the complaints were without merit and that it would “vigorously defend” against them.
Furthermore, the independent members of Euronav’s supervisory board and an overwhelming majority of shareholders supported the CMB takeover bid, but FourWorld’s representative did not use the opportunity to raise any objections or concerns at the time.
According to the Saverys-led firm, the US and Belgian offer will close as scheduled on March 15, at 10 am New York City time and 4 pm CET, respectively.
