Colombia’s SURA will keep looking for partner after acquisition offer ends By Reuters

BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombia’s largest investment holding company Grupo SURA said on Monday it will restart the search for a possible strategic partner after the end of a public acquisition offer by magnate Jaime Gilinski.

Gilinski – one of Colombia’s richest men and the owner of bank GNB Sudameris – is seeking between 5% and 6.25% of the company’s shares at $9.88 per share in a public acquisition offer which ends on Monday.

The price is nearly a quarter more than that offered by Gilinski in a previous acquisition offer in January, when he bought 25.3% of SURA for $952.5 million, part of a series of offers by him which have shaken up the country’s largest conglomerate GEA.

SURA suspended its search for a strategic partner to comply with a passivity rule which restricts businesses from carrying out actions which could affect a pending acquisition offer.

“Once the first offer was presented the search for a strategic partner clearly had to be suspended and so we’re waiting for the passivity rule to expire, so the board of directors, along with the administration, can continue to consider the possibilities of continuing to add knowledge and vision in the long term,” SURA head Gonzalo Perez said in answer to a Reuters question on a call with investors.

German insurance company Munich RE is one of SURA’s top investors – it owns 18.9% of SURA’s insurance subsidiary Suramericana.

SURA – which has presence in 11 Latin American countries through investments in banking, insurance, pensions, food, cement, energy and infrastructure – has projected growth of between 10% and 15% in its net profit for this year, after it more than quadrupled profit last year to $388.6 million.

($1 = 3,910.64 Colombian pesos)