DP World Makes $890mn offer for Imperial Logistics, a week after Syncreon Acquisition

Dubai based port operator DP World has announced an offer to acquire Johannesburg-listed Imperial Logistics, an integrated logistics and market access company with operations mainly across the African continent and in Europe. It has offered the shareholders of Imperial Logistics a premium of 39.5% over the current price at ZAR 66/share ($4.6/share) implying an equity consideration of ZAR 12.7bn ($890mn). The transaction is subject to the shareholder and regulatory approval. Imperial has a footprint in 25 countries with a focus on healthcare, consumer, automotive, chemicals, industrial and commodities industries. With the acquisition, DP World aims to enhance its worldwide capabilities, especially in Africa and hopes to accelerate it’s transformation into an advanced logistics company which provides end to end supply chain solutions to cargo owners. The company said, “Combining the companies will create the continent’s best network across inland logistics, ports & terminals, economic zones and marine logistics.” The port operator had announced the acquisition of a 100% stake in US based global logistics provider Syncreon for an enterprise value of $1.2bn last week. The company had said, “DP World continues to make positive progress on its capital recycling programmes and remains fully committed to its leverage target of below 4.0x Net Debt/EBITDA by the end of 2022.”