R.E.A. Trading and Centum Investments take over Rea Vipingo

East Africa’s leading investment company, Centum has entered into an agreement with R.E.A. Trading Limited in competing bids for taking over of Rea Vipingo Plantations Limited.

R.E.A. Trading Limited had originally made the takeover on 25th April to earn shares of Rea Vipingo Plantations Limited. Centum on the other hand, made its takeover on 2nd May the same year.

Centum challenged the approval of R.E.A. Trading’s offer by filing an appeal before Capital Marketed tribunal, which later lead to the High Court blocking the takeover of REA Vipingo by the two companies. The two competing companies had a talk and came into an agreement that;

• Centum to pull out from its takeover offer of Rea vipingo Limited and its appeal against the bid made by R.E.A. Trading before the CMA tribunal.

• Rea Vipingo Plantations Limited to keep ownership of land and continue harvesting all the sisal currently growing on the land over its lifespan while Centum takes over areas with mature sisal that has been harvested.

• Centum to acquire 9,646 acres of land in Vipingo at a price of KES 180,000 per acre and RVP’s subsidiary Vipingo Estates Limited which owns approximately 900 acres of land at a price of approximately Kes.340 million. The transaction prices estimates to KES 2.1 billion. According to the latest valuation commissioned by RVP, the market value of the land is KES 175,000 per acre.

• R.E.A. Trading will go ahead with its takeover bid and will pay the full amount of an additional cash top-up of KES.15 per share, which together with its offer price of KES.70 per share, makes the total offer to RVP shareholders KES 85 per share.

According to James Mworia, Centum’s CEO who mentioned in a statement after the two companies had settled into an agreement, the parties involves including the Rea Vipingo Plantations shareholders will benefit from the increased offer price of KES 85 realizing a higher price for their investments.