Santova, the JSE-listed international supply chain solutions group said on Friday it had acquired 100% of The Seabourne Group, a logistics provider across the UK and Europe, for about R417.7 million.
The Seabourne Group has nine offices and warehouses in the UK, Netherlands, and France. Its services include Customs Clearing & Freight Forwarding, fulfilment centres, and boutique services such as in the publishing sector, mainly in subscription magazines.
Santova is already represented in 11 countries through its offices in South Africa, Australia, China, Germany, Hong Kong, Mauritius, Netherlands, Singapore, UK, US, and Vietnam. Santova’s directors owned 21.05% of the group shares as of February 28, 2025, and there were no other single shareholders with a stake of more than 15.3% at the time.
Seabourne’s South African subsidiary, Seabourne Inxpress, has been excluded from the transaction and has been separately unbundled pre-completion.
Santova’s directors said in a statement they made the acquisition because the ability to leverage well-located fulfilment centres and technologies will be key to remaining competitive and meeting growing customer expectations, as larger, more complicated supply chains of multinational clients become more frequent.
“For this reason, the company has acquired Seabourne… This business offers Santova the ability to provide clients with strategically located fulfilment centres in the Netherlands, the gateway to Europe, as well as in the UK.
These facilities, unlike traditional warehouses, are designed for the processing and shipping of customer orders as opposed to bulk storage and long-term inventory holding,” the directors said.
Specialist activities or services include fast picking, packing, and dispatching, and the integration directly with online order/sales platforms, fast-tracking Santova’s strategy, which is focused on the e-commerce market.
“The rise of e-commerce continues to drive demand for faster and more efficient logistics services, particularly in areas such as last-mile delivery. At the same time, demand for warehousing space is high, particularly for e-commerce fulfilment, and finding suitable land and securing planning permission is becoming more and more difficult in Europe, especially in the Netherlands,” Santova’s directors said.
Seabourne Holdings is owned by Daniel Flitterman and CJ Bourne (Asset Management). The beneficial owner of CJ Bourne (Asset Management) is Lady Joy Hilary Bourne.
Santova will settle the £17.03m (about R417.1m) purchase price with £13.63m to be paid on the completion date, with the balance to be paid depending on certain targets, and deferred payments of £1.7m cash within 90 days of the completion of each of the first and second 12-month anniversaries of the completion date.
Santova will fund the cash portion of the price through a combination of cash reserves and a R60m five-year medium-term loan facility, which has been approved by the group’s primary bankers, Nedbank Limited.
Santova’s CEO Glen Gerber said in the integrated report for the year to February 28, 2025, that the group ended the financial year in a strong financial position and that it was well diversified.
He said the US was not a significant trade lane for Santova’s offices globally, offering some comfort regarding the extent to which group earnings might be impacted by the US’s changes to its import tariff regime.
However, there remained concern that the resultant global trade changes would create a deeper and longer slowdown with global repercussions, which would then have an adverse impact on the group.
Santova’s share traded 3.33% higher at R7.58 on the JSE on Friday afternoon.
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