(Bloomberg) -- Brandes Investment Partners LP has built a stake in Grifols SA as investors wait for Brookfield Asset Management to make an offer for the Spanish drugmaker.
The San Diego-based investment firm owned 13.5% of Grifols as of Sept. 30, according to a US Securities Exchange Commission filing. The holdings comprised 16,758,727 class B shares and 18,447,582 American depositary receipts, which represent one share apiece.
Grifols B stock doesn’t carry voting rights, and therefore trades at a discount of around €2 per share relative to the class A’s. Holders of the shares, however, do get to vote on extraordinary matters that affect their rights, such as changes to Grifols’ articles of association.
Brandes’s stake building comes as Brookfield is evaluating a potential takeover of the firm along with the Grifols family. The Toronto-based asset manager may be seeking to change the company’s bylaws to be allowed to offer a different price for class B shares and take advantage of their discount, Spanish newspaper Expansion reported in September.
Brookfield’s talks with Grifols were first disclosed in July. No further details have since been officially confirmed, but Bloomberg reported earlier this month that obtaining information about related-party transactions is one of several pending issues that have slowed the process of assessing the value of Grifols.
Grifols’s ordinary shares closed at €9.17 on Friday, compared with €11.13 for the voting shares.
--With assistance from Tom Maloney.
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