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Press buys 10% stake in sunbird

Dual-listed conglomerate Press Corporation Limited (PCL) plc has bought a 10 percent stake in Sunbird Tourism plc, extending its investment interests into the tourism sector, group chief executive officer George Partridge confirmed acquisition yesterday.

PCL has bought the shares offloaded by United Kingdom (UK)-based investor Noel Hayes who had 16.44 percent.

This means that Malawi government is still the largest shareholder in the Malawi Stock Exchange (MSE)-listed hotel chain with 71 percent, with Hayes now having 6.44 percent, the public 12.56 percent and PCL 10  percent.

Sunbird plc is building a conference centre at Sunbird Mount Soche in Blantyre

Said Partridge: “We have been talking about expanding our investment base to include tourism for some time and we thought this was a good starting point.”

PCL plc is listed on MSE and on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) as a global depository receipt and, as the largest holding company in the country, it has interests in a number of sectors, including financial services, owning National Bank of Malawi plc, telecommunications (TNM plc and Malawi Telecommunications Limited), food and beverages, energy (Puma Energy) and consumer goods (People’s Trading Centre).

Partridge said the PCL plc strategy, apart from emphasising on growth and sustainability of the companies in which it holds stakes, is embracing new sectors earmarked for future investments such as tourism and energy.

“So, the Sunbird Tourism deal gives us a good entry point into the tourism sector and we hope that this investment will grow in future and will benefit our shareholders,” he said.

There has, however, not been any movement in terms of share prices at MSE on the two counters—PCL and Sunbird Tourism—with share prices closing the day at K680 and K44, respectively.

Over the years, analysts have called on government to dilute its shareholding or recapitalise the hotel which boasts of seven hotels and lodges.

In an earlier interview, Sunbird Tourism board chairperson Phillip Madinga said they would want government to hold between 20 percent and 25 percent shareholding or recapitalise to enable it engage in its planned infrastructure developments.

“Ideally, we have two options, where government may still be a controlling shareholder in which they would dilute to 51 percent. That would give us some money to do some of the projects. The ideal dilution that we would want is where we dilute to somewhere around 20 percent to 25 percent.”

Earlier, Treasury officials indicated government is willing to recapitalise Sunbird as a major shareholder, but could not disclose when that will be done and how much they will inject into the hotel chain.

In the year ended December 2017, PCL more than doubled its profit to K39.6 billion from the previous year’s K15.31 billion. n

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