Imperial Tobacco Says has 93.5 Percent

Source from:  Reuters - Tuesday, January 22 12:59 pmMADRID (Reuters) 01/23/2008

Imperial Tobacco said on Tuesday it now holds 93.5 percent of Franco-Spanish cigarette maker Altadis after it launched a 50-euros-a-share cash bid last year worth 12.6 billion euros (9.4 billion pounds). Imperial, the world's fourth-largest cigarette group, said the figure was not the final result of the offer as it did not include acceptances received via the Euronext Paris exchange. "Imperial believes that approximately 3 percent of the capital of Altadis is traded on Eurolist by Euronext Paris," it said in a statement to the Spanish stock exchange. The final result of the bid is expected on Friday, January 25. Imperial said the offer is now unconditional, and it will enforce its right to squeeze out the remaining shareholders in Altadis at the same offer price and will then de-list the shares on Spanish and French exchanges. The company still has to make a decision about what it will do with Altadis's logistics unit Logista, its alternatives being to sell the unit or buy-out the minority shareholders. Altadis owns 60 percent of Logista and the decision over whether to buy the rest of the shares or sell-out will determine the size of the rights issue Imperial has said it will launch to pay for the Altadis deal. Imperial said it will announce its decision over the future of its stake in Logista once the final result of the Altadis bid is published on Friday. By 12:50 p.m. British time, Imperial shares were 2.2 percent lower at 23.45 pounds, underperforming London's FTSE 100 index which was down 0.6 percent. (Reporting by Ben Harding and Robert Hetz; writing by Joe Ortiz, editing by David Jones) Enditem