The fate of the Aldar/Sorouh merger has still to be decided will be decided after a meeting of Aldar’s shareholders last Thursday failed to attract the necessary number of shareholders.
Aldar needed to gain the approval of 75% of its shareholders for the proposed merger with Sorouh at the extraordinary general meeting at the Yas Rotana Hotel on Yas Island on February 21 but failed to gain the necessary attendance numbers.
A date for a second shareholders’ meeting has now been set for next Sunday, March 3 – at which the company will need to achieve a quorum of just 50% of shareholders.
The boards of both companies agreed to a deal last month which will see Sorouh’s shareholders receive 1.288 Aldar shares for every existing share held. This means that the balance of shares held by Aldar and Sorouh shareholders would be 57% and 43% of the combined venture respectively – as opposed to the 63% and 37% implied by the relative share values of each company on the day before the deal was announced.
However, Aldar’s implied acquisition price of $1.5bn (AED: 5,511m) means that it stands to make a net gain of $296.2m (AED: 1,088m), as Sorouh’s asset base is currently valued at approximately $1,797m (AED: 6.6bn).
Sorouh has also confirmed that it has moved back the date of its vote to March 3 as a result of not achieving quorum.
If shareholders of both firms do eventually agree to back the merger next month, it will create the Middle East’s third-largest publicly-quoted real estate developer, behind Qatar’s Barwa Real Estate and Dubai’s Emaar Properties. The firm will have a combined asset base of $12.8bn.
