MEDIA24 STAKE
What benefits are likely for unbundled Novus?
The proposed unbundling of Media24’s 66% stake in printing group Novus Holdings offers some tantalising benefits
The proposed unbundling of Media24’s 66% stake in printing group Novus Holdings could help to lift trading in Novus’s tightly held shares. This might help to halt or reverse the share’s declining price trend evident since it was listed in early 2015. Also likely to help the share’s performance is the removal of the uncertainty that has dogged the company’s ownership structure since 2014, when former CEO and joint controller Lambert Retief proposed a scheme to cash in part of his stake in the company. On Friday, Novus closed 2% down at R7.25. The share has been on a downward path since its early 2015 trading level of almost R17. Friday’s decline followed Competition Tribunal confirmation that Media24 had to complete the unbundling by about November 2017. The ruling allows Media24 to hold on to 19% or less of Novus. The remainder of the shares must be unbundled to Naspers and thereafter to Naspers shareholders. Media24 has 20 business days to lodge any amendments to its memorandum of ...
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