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# Omnia listed in 1980, and a buyer from Nagpur is about to end that for R134.50 a share
- URL: https://www.businessbagel.com/omnia-solar-industries-buyout-jse-delisting/
- Published: 2026-09-16T02:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-16T02:29:59.000Z
- Description: Solar Industries is paying R134.50 a share in cash for the explosives and fertiliser group, and Omnia shareholders get no route to stay invested in the buyer.
- Author: Christian Maidman
- Tags: Companies, Business Bagel News, #big

Blowing holes in rock for the mines and mixing fertiliser for the farms have sat inside one company for decades, and that company is Omnia: explosives through BME, crop nutrition alongside them. On Monday India's Solar Industries agreed to buy it outright for cash, at R134.50 a share, and take it off the Johannesburg exchange.

The price values Omnia's issued shares at R21.83 billion. Measured against Thursday's close, before Omnia warned the market it was in talks, that is a premium of 30.98%, or close to a third more than the shares were fetching. Measured against Friday, after the share had already run on the warning, it is 14.30%. Both numbers sit in the same announcement and both are true; which one gets quoted is a choice about when you start the clock.

## Why Nagpur could outbid Johannesburg

Solar Industries started in 1995 as a single explosives plant in Nagpur, in western India, and now supplies more than 90 countries from factories in eleven of them. It is the largest maker and exporter of industrial explosives in India, and its shares have run about 80% higher over the past year.

That run is what makes the deal work. Solar carries a market value of roughly R340 billion, against the R19.8 billion the market had put on Omnia on Monday morning. Anthony Clark, the analyst who has covered Omnia for two decades, reckons Solar's shares trade at about 45 times enterprise value where Omnia's trade at 5.7\. Buying earnings cheaply in Johannesburg and reporting them inside a business the market rates that highly improves the buyer's own numbers even after paying a premium.

## No way to stay in

Shareholders who liked owning Omnia do not get to keep owning it through Solar. India still restricts where its domestically incorporated companies may list shares abroad, so Solar cannot simply add a Johannesburg listing the way AB InBev did when it swallowed SABMiller, or Canal+ did in June after taking MultiChoice private. Chief executive Seelan Gobalsamy told News24 there are complexities and regulatory issues in the way, and that a secondary listing is a maybe for later rather than a no forever. The cash is the whole offer.

Getting there takes time. Competition authorities across eight jurisdictions have to clear it, from South Africa and Namibia to Nigeria and Mali, four counterparties to Omnia contracts that cannot be named have to consent, and the Takeover Regulation Panel has to issue a compliance certificate before anything becomes unconditional. The scheme circular is due around 12 October and the longstop date is 31 July 2027\. Nothing is locked either: the announcement says there are no irrevocable undertakings, only indications of support covering 19.57% of the shares, and a competing offer worth 2.5% more a share is one the independent board would have to weigh.