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Avusa shareholders vote to list stake in media rival

Staff Reporter

Staff Reporter

The vote to separately list Avusa's stake in rival media company Caxton went ahead without much fuss yesterday after speculation that some institutional investors would vote against the deal.

At the meeting, 85,7% of shareholders supported the deal which will lead to the separate listing of ElementOne, a shell company that will hold Avusa's 33,6% interest in Caxton and will be listed from March 31 this year.

Fifty-one people abstained from the vote and 14,3% voted against it.

Public Investment Corporation, which holds 10,1% of Avusa, voted against the deal and speculation was that Stanlib, which holds 3,8% of the company did the same.

Mvela has committed to buy between 25,5% and 30% of Avusa once it lists from Allan Gray, for R1,4 billion, together with Mvela's empowerment partners.

At the same meeting, shareholders voted in support of unbundling OpCo and a separate listing of its operating media and entertainment assets under the name Avusa. The current Avusa becomes ElementOne.

Also voted on, was the termination of the employee share incentive scheme and the listing of OpCo on the consumer services-publishing sector of the JSE.

Reports in Business Report indicated that Nedbank Capital, the investment bank acting for Avusa, was seeking and lobbying investors at the end of last week to vote in support of this.

At the meeting it was disclosed that the company paid Nedbank Capital R4-million to assist the company over a period of time to put together the unbundling proposals.

Avusa chief executive Prakash Desai said "we did not appoint Nedbank Capital to lobby".

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