No, the analysis isn’t strictly correct, it’s a Rule 9 offer under the Code, not a Guernsey Scheme. The acceptance condition cannot be higher than 50.1% in a Rule 9 offer. So it’s almost certain to go unconditional, and once declared so, there’s 14 days for non-acceptors to accept. Once past 50%, the concert party can buy in the market without restriction. Usefully, they say that they do not intend to seek to delist if they get to 75%. But who wants to hold a stake in a controlled, illiquid, unbiddable Egyptian family company, were Hend can do what she likes?
So the odd appearance of a $60bn activist fund in a complicated SPV structure in an emerging market was a stitch up. Elliott take a nice turn and exit stage left. Not sure why they were there at all, but perhaps Actis refused to sell to Dr Hend at a knock down price.
A real shame with this company. It hit$ 0.79 only a little while ago! I think like you say, there has been a total stitch up for all shareholders accept for the holding family. Being an Egyptian based company they are obviously not worried about their reputation or any of the investors, who have now been shafted!!
I didn’t realise that Hend and her mother (the founder) are billionaire class. The 2015 IPO raised $290m, which was all “cash out”, no “cash in”, at $4.45 per share. So the Hend family sold at $4.45 to Actis et al in the IPO and bought back 10 years later for less than 0.50c for a far more valuable company. Fantastic long term trade! IDG is very cash generative so doesn’t need the LSE to raise cash but more for a “seal of approval”.
Strictly speaking, the only investor stitched up is Actis. They were a forced seller after 10 years, no doubt did a process to see what buying demand there was, and presumably it was management only. Actis insisted on selling to a third party and I suppose somehow Elliott got involved. ACtis freely took the decision to sell to Elliott and Elliott ditto to onsell to Hend, triggering a Rule 9 bid, which she seems to be complying with fully (she seems to be represented by proper and kosher bankers/lawyers). I’m suggesting that this was all preordained (but I might be wrong). Those believing that Elliott was going to transform this in some way, made their own judgment about upside creation, they were wrong and their projected upside has gone. They still have their investment, no change to mgmt etc, but their perception of speculative upside has been removed. You cd argue that if there was a side deal between Elliott and Hend that shd have been disclosed - having thought about this, I’m not sure that it wd need to have been under the rules.
But why would Elliot bother doing Hend that favour? Presumably they could see the potential value in IDHC….
I don’t struggle to Imagine a scenario where Hend would not want Actis/Phillips on the board / major shareholder (that’s just business sometimes). The thing I struggle with is how on earth could Elliott make the error thinking that the Hend family did not have control of the company? That’s what I can’t stack up. As you say, it seems very unlikely Elliot would make such a basic due diligence error.
I don’t think Elliott made any mistake at all. They arbitraged a desire for Actis to exit after 10 years and not to sell to mgmt (standard VC position). ELliott did some work took a small capital risk for a week or so and bagged $10m or whatever for their trouble. Not bad, not exactly a favour Hend.
This stacks up I think: Elliott agreed to buy Actis’s block Nov 2025: pre-war, stock in the high-50s/low-60s, EGP stable, the re-rate thesis intact. At that point the stake was valued at c USD87m on a c USD 400m mcap  — implying roughly $0.69/share.
The deal completed on 9 April 2026, after regulatory clearance received on 31 March
In between, the war hit — US/Israel strikes began 28 February 2026; Iran closed Hormuz in early March  & EGP fell more than 8% with c USD 6bn of foreign outflows.
So Elliott committed economically in a benign environment, then took delivery into a war-shocked EGP with the near-term thesis damaged. The rational move for Elliot holding a sub-$100m illiquid EM block it no longer wants is take a clean exit to the obvious buyer, the family, rather than tie up capital in a multi-year holdout through Middle East uncertainty.
Be illuminating to know a) what Elliott paid for their block - which could surface anon in disclosure etc b) how strand Hanson / lord bletso is ring fenced in rule 3 process
The trade date for the TR1 was 31 March (when the sp was 55c) and announced on 8 April. Anything before that might have been non-binding (or subject to force majeure provisions) or VWAP related on whatever . There was no actual trade in IDH shares, only the sale and purchase of Actis IDH Ltd. Not easy to discover a price.
The directors don’t have to recommend the offer or not-recommend it. They may say that shareholders might wish to consider liquidity but if you status in beware of control and take your own advice. A tricky one.
So will shareholders be able to offload at $0.50 or will they just have to sell at market prices? I ask because I sold most of mine at $0.50 but with another broker was only offered $0.37! Is this a quick win? Buy at $0.37 then sell to Henda at $0.50?
I just don't get the price diffence between ii and AJBell!?
Yes, the Rule 9 offer has to be open for 21 days after the date of the offer doc being “posted”. If declared unconditional on “day 21”, it has to be held open for a further 14 days. Cd lapse on day 21 though, if the offeror hasn’t got past 50% -that seems unlikely. Can’t really comment on whether there is an arbitrage here. If you do buy stock, you need to have title in yr account in time to deliver it into the offer.
Looks like Elliot could not force their strategy due to family control and sold at a loss? The company devalued with the EGP on start of Iran war. Company value was always a horrible double currency sensitivity: EGP/USD earnings, EGP/GBP listing, and got hit by Iran war. I’m not convinced i like the way the family are treating minority shareholders: they could have pitched above mechanical floor price to reflect peacetime value of EGP and (rising) fundamental value of company.
No chance. ELliott wd have agreed any new strategy before buying in. My analysis is that this is a stitch up. Actis having paid $4.45 to Hend’s family in the IPO declined her buyback offer (there’s a lot of moral hazard in PE selling back to management at a thumping loss - you might find other investees playing this game), but was willing to sell to Elliott at say 40c (the actual trade price isn’t visible anywhere). Maybe there was an understanding with or a put option against Hend’s family at 50c, which Elliott duly acted upon. A 25% profit for a month’s work and no real capital exposure seems quite nice. All speculation, but having seen Elliott in action, they don’t take losses easily. And making long term (small) investments in Egypt is defo not Elliott’s modus operandi.
The Non exec chairman is in the House of Lords. lord Bletso. Not a good look to be chair of a company that is stitching investors…
Richard Phillips (actis) was appointed to the board on 16 April 2021. He is listed as an independent director on IDHC website but oddly : “ …Mr Phillips is not considered by the board as being independent” Actis sold entire stake to an SPV controlled by Elliot on 9 April 2026.
Actis held its block from pre IPO in 2015. Actis it seems was a maturity driven seller at a real loss (paid roughly 115m in 2014).
It feels like there may have been a board level struggle, given IDHC was itself formed through M&A orchestrated by the now bankrupt Abraaj (investment fund). ( former Abraaj CEO Naqvi is wanted for fraud in US). none of that implicated IDHC, but it is a pretty rocky ride, by most standards. You might have had enough by that stage…?
Fortunately I sold out of these as part of a portfolio rationalisation exercise 6 months or so ago. That turned out, purely by chance, to be near the high. I was actually reluctant to sell because they looked like they had potential but I had to take some difficult decisions in order to reduce the number of my holdings very substantially.
Crazy as it is i enjoy watching Harry's farm and hearing about crops, harvests and fertiliser from boots on the ground! It does seem this theme is maybe 6 months too early. Still not sure how we're below $80 a barrel of oil. China apparently didn't import oil during May...probably not something that could be sustained but imagine some gov fait accompli achieved between US and China.
I dipped some toes into tech after the nice little Space X reprice. SMT, PCT & Seraphim. SMT and Polar were at 10% discounts before today's fall. Seraphim maybe at a 25% discount after latest funding round for their biggest holding. I'd just been waiting for an entry and only small stakes so far.
When you first mentioned CORN you also mentioned SUGA. Is SUGA not the better bet given the likely strong El Nino that is coming? Not to mention all the sugar they will have diverted in Brazil to create fuel, which will also negatively impact sugar supplies. Why did you not decide to run with SUGA in the end? It seems like an investment with a high chance of succeeding IMHO!
Interestingly while I did include CORN in the picks for 26 I decided to buy both personally. I sold SUGA at $10.15 in May which was the right thing and it's down -10% since.
The substitution of petrol for ethanol occurs at $70/barrel roughly so we are currently at that borderline.
No, the analysis isn’t strictly correct, it’s a Rule 9 offer under the Code, not a Guernsey Scheme. The acceptance condition cannot be higher than 50.1% in a Rule 9 offer. So it’s almost certain to go unconditional, and once declared so, there’s 14 days for non-acceptors to accept. Once past 50%, the concert party can buy in the market without restriction. Usefully, they say that they do not intend to seek to delist if they get to 75%. But who wants to hold a stake in a controlled, illiquid, unbiddable Egyptian family company, were Hend can do what she likes?
So the odd appearance of a $60bn activist fund in a complicated SPV structure in an emerging market was a stitch up. Elliott take a nice turn and exit stage left. Not sure why they were there at all, but perhaps Actis refused to sell to Dr Hend at a knock down price.
A real shame with this company. It hit$ 0.79 only a little while ago! I think like you say, there has been a total stitch up for all shareholders accept for the holding family. Being an Egyptian based company they are obviously not worried about their reputation or any of the investors, who have now been shafted!!
G.
I didn’t realise that Hend and her mother (the founder) are billionaire class. The 2015 IPO raised $290m, which was all “cash out”, no “cash in”, at $4.45 per share. So the Hend family sold at $4.45 to Actis et al in the IPO and bought back 10 years later for less than 0.50c for a far more valuable company. Fantastic long term trade! IDG is very cash generative so doesn’t need the LSE to raise cash but more for a “seal of approval”.
Strictly speaking, the only investor stitched up is Actis. They were a forced seller after 10 years, no doubt did a process to see what buying demand there was, and presumably it was management only. Actis insisted on selling to a third party and I suppose somehow Elliott got involved. ACtis freely took the decision to sell to Elliott and Elliott ditto to onsell to Hend, triggering a Rule 9 bid, which she seems to be complying with fully (she seems to be represented by proper and kosher bankers/lawyers). I’m suggesting that this was all preordained (but I might be wrong). Those believing that Elliott was going to transform this in some way, made their own judgment about upside creation, they were wrong and their projected upside has gone. They still have their investment, no change to mgmt etc, but their perception of speculative upside has been removed. You cd argue that if there was a side deal between Elliott and Hend that shd have been disclosed - having thought about this, I’m not sure that it wd need to have been under the rules.
But why would Elliot bother doing Hend that favour? Presumably they could see the potential value in IDHC….
I don’t struggle to Imagine a scenario where Hend would not want Actis/Phillips on the board / major shareholder (that’s just business sometimes). The thing I struggle with is how on earth could Elliott make the error thinking that the Hend family did not have control of the company? That’s what I can’t stack up. As you say, it seems very unlikely Elliot would make such a basic due diligence error.
I don’t think Elliott made any mistake at all. They arbitraged a desire for Actis to exit after 10 years and not to sell to mgmt (standard VC position). ELliott did some work took a small capital risk for a week or so and bagged $10m or whatever for their trouble. Not bad, not exactly a favour Hend.
This stacks up I think: Elliott agreed to buy Actis’s block Nov 2025: pre-war, stock in the high-50s/low-60s, EGP stable, the re-rate thesis intact. At that point the stake was valued at c USD87m on a c USD 400m mcap  — implying roughly $0.69/share.
The deal completed on 9 April 2026, after regulatory clearance received on 31 March
In between, the war hit — US/Israel strikes began 28 February 2026; Iran closed Hormuz in early March  & EGP fell more than 8% with c USD 6bn of foreign outflows.
So Elliott committed economically in a benign environment, then took delivery into a war-shocked EGP with the near-term thesis damaged. The rational move for Elliot holding a sub-$100m illiquid EM block it no longer wants is take a clean exit to the obvious buyer, the family, rather than tie up capital in a multi-year holdout through Middle East uncertainty.
Be illuminating to know a) what Elliott paid for their block - which could surface anon in disclosure etc b) how strand Hanson / lord bletso is ring fenced in rule 3 process
The trade date for the TR1 was 31 March (when the sp was 55c) and announced on 8 April. Anything before that might have been non-binding (or subject to force majeure provisions) or VWAP related on whatever . There was no actual trade in IDH shares, only the sale and purchase of Actis IDH Ltd. Not easy to discover a price.
The directors don’t have to recommend the offer or not-recommend it. They may say that shareholders might wish to consider liquidity but if you status in beware of control and take your own advice. A tricky one.
So will shareholders be able to offload at $0.50 or will they just have to sell at market prices? I ask because I sold most of mine at $0.50 but with another broker was only offered $0.37! Is this a quick win? Buy at $0.37 then sell to Henda at $0.50?
I just don't get the price diffence between ii and AJBell!?
AJ bell is 50c to 50c II is 50c to 50.2c, tight spread. With platforms, the real price is often only shown at the moment of a trade.
50c and 37p ?
Yes, the Rule 9 offer has to be open for 21 days after the date of the offer doc being “posted”. If declared unconditional on “day 21”, it has to be held open for a further 14 days. Cd lapse on day 21 though, if the offeror hasn’t got past 50% -that seems unlikely. Can’t really comment on whether there is an arbitrage here. If you do buy stock, you need to have title in yr account in time to deliver it into the offer.
Looks like Elliot could not force their strategy due to family control and sold at a loss? The company devalued with the EGP on start of Iran war. Company value was always a horrible double currency sensitivity: EGP/USD earnings, EGP/GBP listing, and got hit by Iran war. I’m not convinced i like the way the family are treating minority shareholders: they could have pitched above mechanical floor price to reflect peacetime value of EGP and (rising) fundamental value of company.
No chance. ELliott wd have agreed any new strategy before buying in. My analysis is that this is a stitch up. Actis having paid $4.45 to Hend’s family in the IPO declined her buyback offer (there’s a lot of moral hazard in PE selling back to management at a thumping loss - you might find other investees playing this game), but was willing to sell to Elliott at say 40c (the actual trade price isn’t visible anywhere). Maybe there was an understanding with or a put option against Hend’s family at 50c, which Elliott duly acted upon. A 25% profit for a month’s work and no real capital exposure seems quite nice. All speculation, but having seen Elliott in action, they don’t take losses easily. And making long term (small) investments in Egypt is defo not Elliott’s modus operandi.
The Non exec chairman is in the House of Lords. lord Bletso. Not a good look to be chair of a company that is stitching investors…
Richard Phillips (actis) was appointed to the board on 16 April 2021. He is listed as an independent director on IDHC website but oddly : “ …Mr Phillips is not considered by the board as being independent” Actis sold entire stake to an SPV controlled by Elliot on 9 April 2026.
Actis held its block from pre IPO in 2015. Actis it seems was a maturity driven seller at a real loss (paid roughly 115m in 2014).
It feels like there may have been a board level struggle, given IDHC was itself formed through M&A orchestrated by the now bankrupt Abraaj (investment fund). ( former Abraaj CEO Naqvi is wanted for fraud in US). none of that implicated IDHC, but it is a pretty rocky ride, by most standards. You might have had enough by that stage…?
Fortunately I sold out of these as part of a portfolio rationalisation exercise 6 months or so ago. That turned out, purely by chance, to be near the high. I was actually reluctant to sell because they looked like they had potential but I had to take some difficult decisions in order to reduce the number of my holdings very substantially.
Crazy as it is i enjoy watching Harry's farm and hearing about crops, harvests and fertiliser from boots on the ground! It does seem this theme is maybe 6 months too early. Still not sure how we're below $80 a barrel of oil. China apparently didn't import oil during May...probably not something that could be sustained but imagine some gov fait accompli achieved between US and China.
I dipped some toes into tech after the nice little Space X reprice. SMT, PCT & Seraphim. SMT and Polar were at 10% discounts before today's fall. Seraphim maybe at a 25% discount after latest funding round for their biggest holding. I'd just been waiting for an entry and only small stakes so far.
When you first mentioned CORN you also mentioned SUGA. Is SUGA not the better bet given the likely strong El Nino that is coming? Not to mention all the sugar they will have diverted in Brazil to create fuel, which will also negatively impact sugar supplies. Why did you not decide to run with SUGA in the end? It seems like an investment with a high chance of succeeding IMHO!
Interestingly while I did include CORN in the picks for 26 I decided to buy both personally. I sold SUGA at $10.15 in May which was the right thing and it's down -10% since.
The substitution of petrol for ethanol occurs at $70/barrel roughly so we are currently at that borderline.
The question is when is the turning point. OB