ApexHi CEO Gerald Leissner said yesterday they had so far bought just over 10% of MICC's linked units.
Meanwhile, rival listed property loan stock company Vukile Property Fund announced at the weekend that it had obtained unconditional approval from the Competition Tribunal for its offer to acquire the entire issued capital of MICC.
It said this was one of the conditions precedent for Vukile's offer to acquire all the linked units in MICC for a consideration of 126 new Vukile linked units for every 100 MICC linked units. The remaining conditions are the approvals required from the JSE Securities Exchange SA, the Securities Regulation Panel and Vukile's unitholders.
Vukile also has agreements of sale from 61,7% of MICC's linked unitholders.
Vukile CEO Gerhard van Zyl said the go-ahead from the Competition Tribunal brought the deal, designed to create a major new property company, one step closer.
Van Zyl said that if their offer succeeded, the proposed merger between Vukile and MICC would produce a business with assets of more than R2,7bn and a market capitalisation of R1,4bn.
Although first prize for ApexHi would have been to buy 100% of MICC's linked units, ApexHi will be happy to hold a significant stake.
"We fully expect to become a significant minority shareholder," said Leissner. It still appeared that ApexHi's offer was better than Vukile's "from all points of view".
ApexHi is offering to buy all MICC units for a consideration of 36 ApexHi A units and 36 ApexHi B units for every 100 MICC units, or R320 in cash, 18 ApexHi A and 18 ApexHi B units.
ApexHi's offer for MICC is higher than Vukile's.
Leissner said it was not surprising that the Competition Tribunal had approved Vukile's offer as it was not an unusual transaction. So far not a single property transaction had been turned down by the body.
