Petronas remains tight-lipped over the sale of its 14.9% equity stake in Cairn India Ltd, which explores and produces crude oil and natural gas in India.
The local national oil company declined comment yesterday when contacted by StarBiz over a local business daily’s report that Petronas was looking to divest its stake in Cairn India, as part of its new strategy to do away with assets in markets that are considered not strategic.
The news report on Wednesday said Petronas would pocket a handsome gain of US$900mil from the equity sale in Cairn India.
London Stock Exchange-listed Vedanta Resources Plc announced in August its plan to buy a majority stake, between 40% and 51%, in Cairn India from parent company Cairn Energy Plc for up to US$8.48bil. Vedanta also made an open offer to buy up to 20% of Cairn India from minority shareholders.
Mining billionaire Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta is seeking to buy some 60% of Cairn India for as much as US$9.6bil. Vedanta is offering 405 rupees per share to buy the majority stake from Cairn Energy while its general offer to minority shareholders is 355 rupees for each Cairn India share.
The lower offer is because of a non-compete fee of 50 rupees per unit to be paid to Cairn Energy’s block of shares. Cairn India saw its share price shed 0.93% to end the day at 330.4 rupees yesterday.
Should Petronas decide to take up the general offer, its current combined stake, or 283.4 million shares, in Cairn India is valued at US$2.24bil based on the general offer price of 335 rupees. Petronas first made its entry as a shareholder in Cairn India by purchasing a 10% stake for US$700mil in a pre-initial public offering placement exercise carried out in 2006.
It has spent roughly US$1.3bil to own a 14.9% stake, with its lastest purchase of a 2.3% stake taking place last October for some US$240mil. - The Star
