Category: M&A

Colombia’s largest retailer, Almacenes Exito, has raised a further $1.3 million from the sale of new shares as part of its acquisition financing of local rival Carulla Vivero. Exito sold 277,377 new shares in a second and third round after raising $116 million from the first-round sale of 24.4 million new shares earlier this month. The proceeds of the share sale will go towards funding the $470 million acquisition of a 72.2% stake in Carulla.

Brazilian mergers and acquisitions totaled $62.68 billion (131.7 billion reais) last year, an increase of 237% over the previous year, according to Associação Nacional dos Bancos de Investimento (Anbid). The figure includes public share offerings and corporate restructurings. The amount of “pure” M&A transactions rose 348%, from $9.52 billion to $42.69 billion (20 billion reais to 89.7 billion reais). Of these, 67% or $53.95 billion were accounted for by deals involving foreign acquisitions. Even when CVRD’s acquisition of Canada’s Inco is removed, these transactions grew by 125% compared with 2005.

As part of its acquisition financing of local rival Carulla Vivero, Colombian retailer Almacenes Exito has raised $116 million from the sale of new shares. Exito sold 24.4 million shares to existing shareholders at 10,500 pesos per share. The proceeds of the share sale will go towards funding the $470 million acquisition of a 72.2% stake in Carulla.

Panama-headquartered Grupo Financiero Uno and its subsidiaries (GFU), the region’s largest credit card issuer, has earned ratings upgrades from Fitch Ratings following the group’s acquisition by Citi. Banco Uno in El Salvador has had its long-term national rating raised from A to AAA, while its short-term rating has been raised from F2 to F1+. Meanwhile, in Nicaragua, Banco Uno’s national rating is raised from A- to AA+ (long-term) and from F2 to F1+ (short-term).

Canadian mining company Skye Resources says it has exercised its option to make unconditional its 2004 acquisition of the CVRD Inco interest in the Fenix nickel laterite project in Guatemala. The company has delivered 1.75 million shares and $3.5 million to CVRD as consideration.

Citi has named Edgardo del Rincón Gutiérrez as the chief executive of Grupo Financiero Uno for Central America. The US house has just closed the acquisition of the region’s largest credit card issuer, which it agreed to buy for an undisclosed sum last October. Del Rincón Gutiérrez most recently served as the GFU integration team director, before which he was general director of Crédito Familiar for Banamex.

Mexican industrial conglomerate Alfa says it has closed its acquisition of the automotive castings business Hydro Castings from Norwegian oil and gas company Norsk Hydro. Alfa agreed, last November, to buy the business for $586 million. On Tuesday, Alfa announced plans to increase Nemak’s capital by $520 million through the issuance of new Nemak shares. The funds raised will go towards financing the Norsk Hydro deal.

Chilean retailer Cencosud has made another move to acquire shares in Colombia’s largest supermarket chain Almacenes Exito, which is currently in the process of completing its $430 million acquisition of local rival Carulla Vivero. Cencosud has agreed to acquire 6.05 million shares in Exito being sold as part of its stock offering to raise funds for the Carulla purchase. Earlier this month, Exito announced its was offering 24.7 million shares, or 12% of the total share capital.

Société Générale has followed up its first purchase in the Brazilian banking market last year with the acquisition of São Paulo-head quartered bank Cacique. Although the French firm offered no financial details, local media reported a transaction value in the region of $400-430 million (850-900 million reais) for the 100% stake. Banco Cacique specializes in consumer credit. Last March SocGen bought a 70% stake in consumer finance house Banco Pecúnia.