Wal-Mart starts $2.66 billion tender offer for Chile's D&S

The offer, published in local media in Chile, was for 40.8 cents a share of D&S, and $24.48 per ADR, equivalent to 60 D&S shares each.

Holders of stock will have from midnight local time (10 p.m. EST on December 23) on December 24 through midnight on January 22, 2009, to accept the offer.

Stock in D&S traded up 28 percent on Monday at 249 pesos per share, just below the equivalent 256 pesos of the 40.8 cents offer at Tuesday's exchange rate.

The all-cash tender offer represents a premium of more than 37 percent over the average closing price for the 30 trading days before it was announced.

Wal-Mart has set the acquisition of 50.01 percent of the shares as a minimum condition for the offer to prosper and D&S controlling shareholders Felipe and Nicolas Ibanez Scott have committed the sale of at least 23.4 percent and up to 33.4 percent of the company initially, but plan to remain owners of a 40 percent stake.

The bid has been well-received by the market, driving up the value of the Chilean peso on anticipation of the cash-injection it would bring to the local economy.

Chilean brokerages were recommending that D&S shareholders accept the offer, while pension funds, which held nearly 14 percent of the company's stock as of November, were said to be negotiating the sale of their shares.

Earlier this year Chile's antitrust tribunal nixed a proposed takeover of D&S by regional retailer Falabella .

(Reporting by Antonio de la Jara; Writing by Pav Jordan; Editing by Derek Caney)