Huge Group forced to take down Adapt IT attack videos

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Huge Group has taken down two videos from its website in which it implored Adapt IT shareholders to accept its offer to buy the software services group in an all-share deal.

This is after the Takeover Regulation Panel (TRP), which regulates mergers and acquisitions in South Africa, objected to the videos Huge Group published online.

“Huge has been notified by the TRP that the videos constitute ‘announcements’, in respect of which approval from the TRP ought to have been sought prior to publication. Accordingly, Huge has removed the videos from its website and retracts the statements they contain,” Huge Group said in a statement to shareholders on Thursday afternoon.

The TRP’s decision comes as the battle for control of Adapt IT intensifies, with Huge Group making the case why its R5.52 all-share offer – which it unveiled in January – is superior to the all-cash offer at R6.50/share made more recently by Canada’s Volaris Group.

In one of the videos, Huge Group’s management team, led by CEO James Herbst, accuses Adapt IT management of looking after their own interests and not the interests of shareholders (watch the video above, or the second video below, both republished on TechCentral’s YouTube channel).

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“The Huge offer is unconditional. The Volaris offer has a raft of conditions and the time value of money erodes the offer price… If you choose cash, R6.50 is all you’ll ever get and you won’t get any upside,” Herbst said in one of the videos.

“An institutional investor has been quoted in the press as saying that the Volaris offer is a management buyout, or MBO. We agree with this view: MBOs are called MBOs because they are good for management. Does the Volaris offer have shareholder interests at heart?”  — (c) 2021 NewsCentral Media