Egyptian tycoon Hend El Sherbini takes majority control of IDH despite board rejection

Hend El Sherbini has taken majority control of the company she runs, after an offer her own board told shareholders to reject went unconditional in its final week.

Hena Holdings, the vehicle she owns with her mother, held 56.60% of Integrated Diagnostics Holdings as at July 28, according to an announcement filed in London. The offer is now unconditional as to acceptances and has been extended to 1pm on August 12. Shareholders who have accepted can no longer withdraw.

The turnaround was abrupt. As at July 23, five days before the original deadline, valid acceptances covered just 900 shares, or 0.00% of the issued capital. Hena sat at 49.61%, exactly where the purchase from Elliott Investment Management had left it a month earlier.

Something moved in the final week. Getting from 49.61% to 56.60% required roughly 40.6 million shares, by Billionaires.Africa's calculation, against a company with about 581 million shares in issue. Holders who had ignored the offer for three weeks delivered nearly 7% of the register in six days.

Neither Hena nor IDH has identified who accepted.

The offer values IDH at about $290.7 million at 50 cents a share, a discount of 11.2% to the closing price of 56.3 cents on June 22, the last trading day before it was announced. Hena declared the price final and did not increase it.

El Sherbini did not set out to buy the company. She was obliged to bid once Hena crossed 30% by acquiring 126 million shares, a 21.67% stake, from Actis IDH Limited, an entity controlled by funds managed by Elliott. Rule 9 of the UK City Code requires a mandatory offer at that threshold.

The independent directors, advised by Strand Hanson and excluding El Sherbini and Sherif El Zeiny because of their connection to the bidder, told shareholders the price significantly undervalued the business. They noted it sat below the prevailing market price, below trading averages, and below even the lowest closing price recorded over the previous six months.

They also made the counter-argument, which may explain the late acceptances. IDH shares are barely traded. The daily average volume over the twelve months to July 6 was 181,937 shares, equivalent to 0.03% of the company. A shareholder wanting to exit in size has few options, and the board acknowledged the offer might provide a certainty of execution that normal market trading would not deliver.

The business itself has been performing. IDH lifted pre-tax profit 47% to 2.12 billion Egyptian pounds in 2025, on revenue up 37% to 7.89 billion pounds. It operates roughly 628 branches across Egypt, Jordan, Nigeria, Sudan and Saudi Arabia under the Al Borg, Al Mokhtabar, Biolab and Echo-Lab brands, and is one of the few African healthcare groups to have listed in London.

What happens next depends on a threshold Hena set itself. It has said it will keep IDH listed in London below 75%, appointing independent non-executive directors, and will apply to cancel the listing at 75% or above.

At 56.60% the company stays on the market. That leaves roughly 43% of the register in the hands of shareholders who declined an offer their board called too low, holding stock in a company now controlled outright by its chief executive, in a security that trades three hundredths of one percent of its capital on an average day.