Photo by: Bloomberg
TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – US fertiliser company Mosaic on Wednesday announced that it had acquired the first tranche of 21.65-million restricted Class A shares from the Margaret A Cargill Foundation and the Anne Ray Charitable Trust in a roughly $2-billion purchase over eight months.
This share repurchase was part of an agreement to buy back 43.3-million restricted Class A shares from the trusts, announced last month.
Based on the 20-day volume-weighted average closing price preceding on Tuesday, the company bought the 21.65-million shares at a price of $45.77 apiece.
The remaining 21.65-million Class A shares would be bought by Mosaic early next month in seven equal instalments at the close of each successive 20-day trading period, using the same volume-weighted average pricing formula as the initial transaction.
The transaction with the so-called MAC Trusts could underpin a stock that has fallen about 20% in the past year as global demand for the company's phosphate and potash fertiliser products waned.
The firm's NYSE-traded stock closed 1.27% higher at $46.94 apiece.