COMPANY NEWS IN BRIEF

Prudential Financial made Alexforbes an offerOn Monday, Prudential Financial made Alexforbes minority shareholders an offer of R5.05 per share as the US insurance company became the second-largest shareholder in the local financial services firm.By Monday afternoon, Alexforbes’ share price was 5% higher, trading at R4.52.Last month, the New York Stock Exchange-listed insurer bought a 14.8% stake in Alexforbes previously owned by the American asset manager Mercer. It now is making an offer to buy out minority shareholders and increase its stake in Alexforbes to 33%.African Rainbow Capital, which owns a 40% stake in Alexforbes, has "irrevocably undertaken" not to accept Prudential&#039;s offer, Fin24 previously reported.Shareholders who own 100 Alexforbes shares or less, can sell all of their shares to Prudential at the offer price. Those who hold more than 100 shares can sell 100 shares plus 45.2% of the rest of their holding.Prudential will buy a maximum of 33% of Alexforbes from these shareholders. The partial offer is for 18.2% of the Alexforbes shares.The offer amount excludes the final dividend declared in June, of 20c per share, and was made via Prudential’s newly created subsidiary called New Veld. -Fin24Owner of Sensodyne makes market debutIn a long-scripted overhaul of its business, British drugmaker GSK spun off its consumer health business on Monday in the biggest listing in Europe for more than a decade.The new company, Haleon, becomes the world&#039;s biggest standalone consumer health business, home to brands including Sensodyne toothpaste and Advil painkillers.Shares in Haleon started trading at 330 pence on Monday morning, giving the business a market valuation of around 30.5 billion pounds (R621 billion).The company&#039;s debut price was largely in line with market expectations, according to two bankers involved in the deal.However, Haleon&#039;s current valuation is lower than expected.Even accounting for the roughly 10 billion pounds in debt, Haleon&#039;s valuation is inferior to the enterprise value of 50 billion pounds Unilever was prepared to pay for the business at the beginning of the year. GSK had rebuffed the offer on the basis it was too low."Investors might be wondering why GSK didn’t accept the much higher bid from Unilever," AJ Bell analyst Danni Hewson wrote in a note. -Fin24Virgin Atlantic to trial flying taxis in LondonVirgin Atlantic Airways will carry out test flights using a flying taxi model from UK startup Vertical Aerospace as the futuristic technology moves closer to becoming a reality.Virgin will operate one flight from the main airport in Bristol, England, where Vertical is based, to an airfield elsewhere in the southwest, according to a joint statement Monday. A second will link the carrier’s own London Heathrow hub and a so-called vertiport to be built by infrastructure specialist Skyports.Vertical said separately that it’s teaming up with Babcock International Group Plc to explore new applications for its VX4 model in providing emergency medical services and cargo transportation.The announcements, which initially sent Vertical’s volatile stock soaring in premarket US trading, come at the start of the Farnborough Airshow southwest of London, where electric vertical take-off and landing craft, or eVTOLs, are playing a higher profile role as competing designs reach maturity.The demonstration missions will take place in 2024 - subject to approval by the UK Civil Aviation Authority - in line with Vertical’s target of receiving type certification for the VX4 in time for service entry by 2025. -Fin24Big blow for Chinese rail giant CRRCThe North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria has dismissed a bid by the local unit of the Chinese Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) to have the SA Revenue Service (SARS) return money taken from its accounts.SARS found that CRRC E-Loco overstated the price of its locomotives sold to Transnet as part of its involvement in state capture, and that the company has a tax debt of more than R3.6 billion. Its parent company is the world&#039;s biggest train maker, which is partly-owned by the Chinese government,The State Capture Inquiry report found that CRRC businesses paid billions in kickbacks to Gupta companies to ensure that Transnet buy 1 064 of its locomotives.In June last year, a senior SARS official instructed China Construction Bank to transfer R635.3 million from an account belonging to the local CRRC unit to SARS. Standard Bank was ordered to pay R101 000 from CRRC’s account.CRRC appealed to the high court to overturn this instruction.In its case, SARS contended it was entitled to instruct third parties to pay over the money because it was dealing with a "dishonest taxpayer", given the evidence of "large scale corruption" committed by the Chinese company in its dealings with Transnet.-Fin24

COMPANY NEWS IN BRIEF

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