OMNIA Holdings said on Monday it had received a buy-out offer from Indian company Solar Industries worth R21.5bn.
The offer, which values the South African mining explosives and agribusiness at R134.50 per share, represents a 35% premium to its volume-weighted 30-day average share price. As such, Omnia management plans to recommend the buy-out to shareholders.
The buyer, Solar Industries, is listed on India’s National Stock Exchange and operates in the explosive and defence and aerospace industries. It has a market value of about $21bn (R340bn).
Seelan Gobalsamy said the prosposed transaction supports Omnia’s offshore strategy. “This is an important milestone in Omnia’s 73-year history,” he said in a statement. The transaction would create “a powerful platform to accelerate BME’s ambition to become a global mining solutions business of scale”.
Solar Industries also supported Omnia’s strategic intention to expand is agribusiness footprint in southern Africa.
The day-to-day running of the company will remain in the hands of current management. There is a possibility that Omnia could be delisted, however.
Shares in Omina surged 15% on Friday, reaching their highest level in five years, after Omnia published a cautionary saying it was involved in a potential buyout discussion.
Omnia declared a total dividend of 750c per share for its financial numbers ended March 31 which included a special dividend of 280c, returning R1.2bn to shareholders. This represents another strong performance and a far cry from Omnia’s position in 2018 when debt had ballooned to about R4.8bn – more than the entire market cap of the company of R1.9bn at that time.
Since its turnaround in 2020, the group has returned R6.8bn to shareholders in dividends and share repurchases. Much of this recovery has been driven by Omnia’s mining explosives division BME. At R1.4bn, BME accounted for 51% of Omnia’s total operating profit in its 2026 financial year, down from 66% of profit a year earlier.
