Portage to Acquire SalvaRx Limited
Portage Biotech Inc. ("Portage" or the "Company") wishes to announce that, subject to regulatory and shareholder consent, it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire 100% of SalvaRx Limited (the "Transaction"). The vendors are SalvaRx Group plc (SALV:LSE), (94.2%), James Mellon (2.9%) and Gregory Bailey (2.9%) (collectively, the "Vendors"). Under the terms of a Sale and Purchase Agreement dated August 13, 2018, the Company has agreed to issue 805,070,067 common shares (the "Consideration Shares") at a deemed price of approximately US$0.089 per share to the Vendors for an aggregate acquisition cost of US$ 71.70 Million. Immediately after closing, SalvaRx Group plc will distribute approximately 87% of the Consideration Shares to its shareholders by way of a dividend in kind.
Declan Doogan, C.E.O. of Portage, remarked, "Since we completed the distribution of Biohaven shares, we have been looking for other exciting undervalued opportunities with near term inflection points. The acquisition of SalvaRx Limited represents the next evolution of Portage as we acquire interest in 10 products in the exciting area of immuno-oncology led by a top class team. Portage is now poised to advance several products to clinical proof of concept and hopefully take advantage of strong capital markets and increased levels of pharma mergers and acquisitions to bring yet more returns to our shareholders."
The Transaction constitutes a reverse takeover under Canadian securities legislation as the number of shares to be issued exceeds 100% of the current issued and outstanding capital of the Company. As the Vendors are all related parties of the Company, the Transaction is subject to the requirements of Multilateral Instrument 61-101 Protection of Minority Shareholders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101") As a consequence, the Transaction requires minority shareholder approval. The Transaction also represents a fundamental change under CSE Policy 8 and, as such, trading in the common shares of Portage will remain halted pending CSE review and approval of the resulting issuer.
Although the Transaction is exempt from the formal valuation requirements of MI 61-101 pursuant to section 5.5(a) (Issuer not Listed on Specified Markets), Steven Mintz, the sole independent director of Portage, has been able to review a 3rd party valuation (the "Valuation") of SalvaRx Limited, which was commissioned by the Company and SalvaRx Group plc to assist him in his review. The Valuation, prepared by PharmaVentures Ltd. of Oxford, dated July 23, 2018, provided Mr. Mintz with, amongst other things, a discussion of various methodologies to value SalvaRx Limited as well as a range of possible values. Mr. Mintz also undertook a series of other independent investigations to ensure that the Transaction would be fair to minority shareholders of Portage.
Further details of the Transac
