South Africa's main stock indices notched up record highs on Monday, with Adcock Ingram in the spotlight after receiving a $515 million takeover offer. Adcock surged 4.4 percent to 52.42 rand after Bidvest offered 6 billion rand, or 52 rand per share, for the shares it doesn't already own in the struggling drugmaker.
But one analyst said the bid, offered at 3.6 premium to Friday's closing share price, looked opportunistic given Adcock potential growth prospects. "Considering the potential turnaround of the company, I think it is definitely an opportunistic bid," said Simon Mather, analyst at Barclays, who has a "neutral" rating on the stock.
"In a more optimistic scenario about the prospects of Adcock, we got to a fair value of 69.5 rand per share provided management is able to orchestrate a meaningful turnaround of the business." Overall, traders took their cue from an upbeat tone in major overseas markets after Greece reached a deal with its international partners to avert an immediate financial crisis.
The JSE Top-40 index gained 0.6 percent to 47, 163, after setting a record 47,220 level earlier in the session. The broader All-share index was up 0.57 percent at 53,336. Retailer Shoprite was also up, rising 2.3 percent ahead of its half-year results on Tuesday and e-commerce firm Naspers was 2.9 percent higher at 1,711.27 rand.
On the downside, Africa's top bullion producer AngloGold Ashanti slumped 3 percent to 132.60 rand after the gold producer fell into a quarterly loss. Rival Harmony Gold lost 4.4 percent to 27.13 rand after a fire at its flagship South African mine. The company said it had rescued nearly 500 miners trapped underground. Trade on the bourse was slow, with 158 million shares changing hands, according to preliminary data. Last year's daily average was 183 million shares.
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