M&A WATCH- IMEX acquisition of Nile Cotton on track to wrap up next week? An ongoing mandatory tender offer from energy trading company IMEX International to acquire at least 51% of Nile Cotton Ginning for EGP 50 / share is set to close successfully next week. With a 63% subscription rate, the offer has already exceeded the minimum threshold required for the acquisition to go through, Tarek Shawky, one of shareholders who accepted the bid, told Enterprise. The MTO officially wraps up next Thursday, 24 September, giving another six business days for individual shareholders to accept or reject the offer. Shawky holds less than 1% of the company and is one of its nearly 5,200 minority shareholders. Samir Afifi and Gamal El Garhy — two major shareholders who collectively own over 20% of the company — have also decided to accept the IMEX offer, Al Mal reported yesterday.

IMEX’s offer price of EGP 50 per share values the entire company at EGP 2.6 bn by our math. The company’s land bank was estimated to have an average value of EGP 2.84 bn, according to a recent report (pdf).Nile Cotton is at the center of a longstanding dispute after a 2011 court ruling sought to reverse its Mubarak-era privatization, claiming the company had been undervalued.