South Australian oyster stock Angel Seafood (ASX:AS1) was one of today’s biggest winners thanks to a takeover offer from a specialist food and agriculture investor.

While the deal was a premium to last week’s price, it was at the same value AS1 listed at nearly four years ago.

The company listed in early 2018 at 20 cents a share but has flatlined for much of its listed life, closing Friday at 12.5 cents per share.

But food and agriculture investor Laguna Bay proposed an offer back at the IPO price and entirely in cash.

Angel Seafood has not yet backed the bid but decided to engage further with Laguna Bay about the offer. The pair have entered in an exclusivity deed allowing Laguna to conduct further due diligence up until February 10 2022.

The company has seen positive times for much of 2021 selling a record 1.4 million oysters in October 2021 which it credited to restaurant channels re-opening after being shut due to lockdowns.

It suffered a scare earlier this month with a vibrio parahaemolyticus outbreak in South Australia which forced it to pause harvesting but last week it got the all clear to resume.

AS1 shares rose over 40% this morning.

Angel Seafood (ASX:AS1) share price chart

 

In other ASX takeovers news today…

Without being specific, BNPL company Humm (ASX:HUM) told shareholders it had received approaches to acquire all of or part of the company.

The board told shareholders it would engage further in relation to these proposals to determine if they could be binding offers in the best interests of the company.

The BNPL sector has been slammed in recent months since the Afterpay-Block tie up, with fears of new regulation, smaller players being crowded out and major banks offering their own services.

Arguably the situation isn’t as bleak for Humm because it offers specialist interest financing for certain SME sectors, but it has also felt the share price carnage of the broader sector.

This was despite the company adding 450,000 new customers in FY21 and delivering a post-tax profit of $68.4 million – albeit across the entire group.

At its AGM last month chairman Andrew Abercrombie blamed the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns and said the business was well placed to succeed in the future.

Humm (ASX:HUM) share price chart

 

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