The Serra family aims to fully control the Occidente insurance group.
Inoc, with more than 62% of the capital, presents a takeover bid and does not rule out taking the company off the stock market.
BarcelonaMore familiar. The Serras, who are already the largest shareholders, aim to further control the Occidente insurance group (formerly Catalana Occidente). This Thursday, Inoc, the company in which they hold a stake and which holds a 62.03% stake directly and indirectly in the holding company GCO (Catalana Occidente Group), is proposing a voluntary takeover bid (OPB) for all shares. Currently, 33.57% of the capital is floating on the market, and half is held by institutional investors.
Inoc will submit this initiative to the shareholders' meeting on April 30 for approval. The objective is to increase direct control, and "if the thresholds established in the takeover bid regulations are reached, Inoc intends to promote the delisting of GCO," according to the company. This operation, to delist the shares, can be carried out if approximately 75% of the shares are controlled.
The offer is presented as a cash purchase of €50 per share. Alternatively, shareholders may choose to accept newly issued Inocsa Class B shares. This represents a premium of approximately 18.3% over the previous day's price, 23.9% over the average price of the month prior to publication, 28.3% over the previous three months, and 31% over the previous six months.
The company emphasizes that the offered price "far exceeds GCO's all-time high." The stock market value of the company, which was one of the many that decided to move its headquarters to Madrid in 2017, stood at €5.07 billion this Thursday, with shares at €42.250. The group's current vice president and CEO is Hugo Serra, son of the president, Josep Maria Serra.
The company recently completed the simplification process for the insurance group. Beginning in 2025, NorteHispana began operating as Occidente. This concludes a process that began in 2023, when the Catalana Occidente brand was renamed Occidente and unified across all its subsidiaries, which, in addition to NorteHispana, include Plus Ultra Seguros and Seguros Bilbao. It also owns Crédito y Caución, Atradius, and Mémora. Last year, its turnover was €5.998 billion, and its consolidated profit was €689 million.
