No agreement between Sonae Industria and Masisa

Jul 15, 2008. /Lesprom.com/. The planned merger of the two Brazilian particleboard and MDF manufacturers Tafisa Brasil S.A. and Masisa do Brasil Ltda. into a joint company has failed to materialise on account of differences of opinion among the respectively superordinate companies Sonae Industria and Masisa. In the middle of January, the two companies had reached agreement on the merger in principle, but were unable to agree on various points in the subsequent negotiations, which were therefore broken off without result at the end of June, Euwid wood products and panels reported. Parallel to this, Masisa Sonae Industria announced that it wished to exercise its "put option” for the 45.68 % holding in Tafibrás Participaciones S.A., which had also been agreed in the middle of January. According to that agreement, Sonae Industria must purchase the Tafibras shareholding from Masisa for the contractually agreed price of $75 million. This transaction is to be completed by July 31, 2008. The consequence of this will be that Sonae Industria will hold all shares in Tafibras and therefore indirectly all shares in the production company Tafisa Brasil.