(BFM Stock Exchange) – The title Imerys is up sharply this Thursday, February 20 after Bloomberg reported that GBL, already a shareholder up to 55% of the group, was considering leaving the producer of industrial minerals.

There is bustle around the Imerys file, this Thursday, February 20. The producer of industrial minerals jumped from 8.6% to 30.54 euros, around 11:30 am, and offers the head of the SBF 120. However, the company has not revealed its annual accounts, since it will only publish them Tonight after the closing of the market.

This leap in the action is to put Bloomberg’s information credit reporting that Groupe Brussels Lambert (GBL) was planning to launch a public purchasing offer (OPA) to get out of the Imerys side.

GBL, a majority shareholder

Groupe Brussels Lambert is an investment company listed on the Brussels Stock Exchange for more than seventy years and presenting a re-evaluated net asset of 16.3 billion euros at the end of September 2024. The group holds participations in listed companies Primary such as Pernod Ricard (6.8%), Adidas (5.1%) or SGS (19.1%).

But Imerys is undoubtedly the largest listed participation in the GBL portfolio, which is also in the capital of unlisted companies on the stock market. In the case of Imerys, the Belgian investment company holds 54.6% of the capital of the producer of industrial minerals.

According to persons close to the file cited by Bloomberg, GBL is preparing to acquire the actions it does not yet have and therefore to take an OPA. To do this, the Belgian company would have taken the language with several investment capital companies on the possibility of associating to buy Imerys, according to these same sources.

The latter told Bloomberg that the discussions were only in their beginning and that it was not sure that they ended up any transaction. GBL representatives interviewed by Bloomberg did not comment on this information. An Imerys spokesperson was not available to answer questions from the financial media.

Before the rise of this Thursday, the action lost 11% over a year. Since 2018, the company has seen its stock market performance is penalized by the North American Talc file. This saga should soon experience a favorable outcome.

In early January, Imerys announced that its North American entities have taken an important stage which should allow them to get out of the “Chapter 11” procedure, the American bankruptcy. The file is therefore on the right track, which should allow investors to “rediscover the hidden assets” of Imerys “, estimated Oddo BHF last October.

The design office quoted “The Quartz Corp”, a co-business held 50% which provides the markets of solar panels and semiconductors with high purity quartz solutions, as well as its lithium mines.