Baumax plans stock market withdrawal

Baumax wants to withdraw from the stock market. The principal shareholder, Baumax Anteilsverwaltungs AG, has made an offer to acquire the remaining 6.2 per cent of preferred stock that is still widely spread. The offer amounts to € 16.58 per preferred share, which includes the dividend for the year 2003 of € 0.58 per share. This means the offer price is 8.4 per cent higher than last Friday’s closing price of € 15.30. According to information from Baumax, the weighted average rate for the year 2003 came to € 11.275. At present the Essl family holds 81.8 per cent of Baumax and Spar Beteiligungs GmbH holds twelve per cent. At a press conference Karlheinz Essl, chairman of the Anteilsverwaltungs AG, denied conclusively that plans for a takeover of Baumax might be behind the offer. He declared that the problem was rather that the costs connected to share dealing no longer bear any relation to the number of scattered shares. If it should come to a delisting, the disclosure requirements stipulated by the stock market would no longer be applicable.