Hemas to delist Morison for Rs.573 mn

Morison PLC, the pharmaceutical manufacturing and distribution subsidiary of Hemas group yesterday informed its board decision to delist its shares from the official list of the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE).

A filing by the company said its board of directors by way of a Circular Resolution dated September 3, 2019 resolved to initiate the delisting of the company’s fully paid voting shares and fully paid non-voting shares from the CSE official list subject to shareholder and other regulatory approvals.

Accordingly, Morison’s majority shareholder, Hemas Manufacturing (Pvt) Ltd will offer to purchase voting shares of the company for Rs.850 per share and non-voting shares for Rs.700 per share.  Morison voting share closed at Rs.850 yesterday.

Hemas manufacturing and Morison’s ultimate parent, Hemas Holdings PLC owns about 91 percent of both voting and non-voting shares of the company.
Morison has 546, 151 shares or 9.4 percent of issued voting shares scattered among 713 public shareholders.

 The public holding of non-voting shares amounts to 161, 465 or 9.27 percent scattered among 521 shareholders. 

Accordingly, the delisting is likely to cost Rs.573 million for Hemas. Morison is currently constructing a new research and pharmaceutical manufacturing facility, for which it entered into a related party agreement with the parent Hemas in 2017 to borrow Rs.1.4 billion.

However, the company in March this year said it is negotiating a new loan agreement with the parent with more favourable terms as no loan disbursement has been made up to now despite the project being in progress. 

For the year ended March 31, 2019, Morison made a net profit of Rs.263 million, down 53 percent from a year ago on flat revenue of Rs.3.5 billion.