Pact Group’s 12-year life as a publicly-listed company is ending, with its shares suspended from trading on Monday before being removed from the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) official list.
The packaging company’s voluntary suspension is a formality which had been approved by shareholders following a takeover bid which reduced the number of shareholders and share trading levels to levels it did not consider warranting a listing.
Founded in 2002 by billionaire Raphael Geminder, Pact joined the ASX in January 2013 after an initial public offering at A$3.80 (US$2.50) per share which raised about A$648.8 million.
Geminder lifted his stake from about 50% to about 88% under a protracted takeover process in 2023 and 2024 during which delisting was flagged as a possibility.
His $289 million buy-out was rejected by independent directors of the company and he was left short of the 90% ownership required to compulsorily buy out the remaining shareholders, who have been left with no secondary market for their shares.
The delisting was resisted by some minority shareholders like Raper Capital whose founder Jeremy Raper said it was the “latest event in a long catalogue designed to disenfranchise and expropriate value from minority shareholders”.
The shares (ASX: PGH) last changed hands on Monday at 91 cents each, valuing the company at $313.3 million, a far cry from levels of almost $7 reached in 2017.
