MetLife closes tender offer for Chile's AFP Provida

US insurer MetLife (NYSE: MET) has completed a tender offer in the US and Chile aimed at acquiring all issued and outstanding shares of Chilean private pension fund manager AFP Provida (NYSE: PVD). Through the tender offer, which was launched in August, MetLife acquired 299,443,938 common shares, in both common share and ADS form, at US$6.1476 each, representing approximately 90.38% of Provida's outstanding common shares. MetLife could increase its ownership to up to 91.38%, subject to the actual delivery of the ADSs tendered by notice of guaranteed delivery pursuant to the US offer, the company said in a press release. In the US offer, where The Bank of New York Mellon was the tender agent, 4,851,876 ADSs (equal to 72,778,140 common shares), representing approximately 21.97% of the currently outstanding common shares of Provida, were validly tendered. In Chile, where brokers Larraín Vial and Banchile acted as agents, a total of 58,949,845 common shares or 17.79% of Provida's outstanding common shares were validly tendered. Last February Spanish bank BBVA (NYSE: BBVA) agreed to sell MetLife its 51.6% stake in AFP Provida, composed of 171,023,573 shares. Although the transaction's price can be pegged at around US$1.84bn (considering 299mn shares were bought at US$6.15 each), MetLife said that the announcement only means that the tender offer has been completed but not that the acquisition transaction itself has been closed. "Once we close the transaction we will be able to say what the final price is," MetLife spokesman John Calagna told BNamericas in an emailed statement, adding that "we are focusing on that now." AFP Provida is the largest private pension fund administrator in Chile, both by assets under management and number of contributors.