CTC offer for FWW is fair, report says

The Board of Directors of Woolworth (Cyprus) Properties Plc (FWW) has concluded that the public offer made by the Cyprus Trading Corp. Pcl (CTC) seeking to acquire a minimum plus one share and a maximum 100% of the its share capital at a cash consideration price of EUR 1.45 per share is reasonable and fair.

The decision was reached after an independent report by advisors Deloitte & Touche, who reached such a conclusion and gave their recomendation to the Board.

The CTC bid is backed and has the full support of NK Shacolas (Holdings) Ltd and related family persons who have already said they would accept CTC’s Public Offer at EUR 1.45 per share. NKS and related family persons hold 14,949,260 FWW shares

representing 13.05% in FWW’s share capital.

The acceptance period has been set for 18 July 2007 until 10 September 2007.

CTC has a 29% direct participation in FWW, whilst NKS and its related persons control another 13.05% of FWW. Hence, CTC needs to acquire an additional 9% of FWW for the Public Offer to be successful.

Marfin Egnatia have valued CTC’s participation in FWW at CYP 22.9 mln (EUR 39.2 mln). Assuming that the Public Offer made to FWW has a 60%-65% success rate (which is a realistic scenario), and that FWW’s Fair Value stands at 1.55 its latest Book Value per share (EUR 1.18) then CTC would have an additional benefit between EUR 0.14 and EUR 0.18 per share.

“This would offer a further upgrade to our target price of 7.0% and 9.0% respectively. We have an Accumulate Recommendation on the stock,” said Marfin Egnatia in a research note.