PETALING JAYA: Sona Petroleum Bhd may have received approval from the Securities Commission (SC) but it faces a testing time to secure the asset it is eyeing which is owned by UK-listed Salamander Energy Plc.
Sona finally announced that it got the SC approval for the acquisition of a 40% stake in UK-listed Salamander Energy Plc’s Thai unit Salamander Energy (Bualuang Holdings) Ltd (SEBG) for US$281.2mil (RM912mil),
Ophir Energy Plc has remained a strong contendor because the directors of Salamander appear to be leaning towards the Ophir offer. Ophir is looking to acquire the entire issued and paid-up capital of Salamander.
On Monday, Sona told Bursa that it had received notice from Salamander, stating that the boards of directors of Salamander and Ophir Energy have reached an agreement on the terms of a recommended acquisition to be made by Ophir for the entire issued and to-be-issued share capital of Salamander via a scheme of arrangement.
Sona shares were suspended twice yesterday. It was first suspended between 9.04am and 10.04am for the SC approval announcement. In the afternoon, it was suspended between 2.30pm and 3.30pm, after the notice for the recommended acquisition of Salamander by Ophir Energy was released.
In the notice given to Sona, it was stated that the Salamander directors who have some 2.02% or 5.24 million shares in Salamander, intend to unanimously recommend that Salamander shareholders vote in favour of the Ophir transaction and vote against any resolution to sell the unit’s stake to Sona.
Other Salamander shareholders that aren’t directors that have also given irrevocable undertakings to vote for Ophir and are against the Sona disposal are SailingStone Capital Partners LLC and Artemis Investment Management LLP with 13.4% and 4.3% stakes respectively.
Meanwhile, T. Rowe Price International Ltd and T. Rowe Price Associates, which have 2% and 6.2% stakes in Salamander respectively, have given non-binding letters of intent to vote in favour of Ophir.
Sona shares were down 2 sen to 41.5 sen while its warrants were down 3.5 sen to 19.5 sen.
Sona warrants were the second most active counter of the day, with 81.76 million shares changing hands. Meanwhile, some 32.43 million mother shares were transacted.
Sources said the Salamander board had contacted Sona, and would be coming down to Malaysia next week, to further facilitate discussions on this matter.
Should Salamander agree on a deal with Sona, it would be completed within a month since Sona has already obtained SC approval. Meanwhile, as Ophir’s deal is by means of a court-sanctioned scheme, this would easily take a few months to completion.
Under Ophir’s agreement, each Salamander shareholder will be entitled to receive 0.57 new Ophir share for every one Salamander share owned.
This transaction represents an indicative value of 115.9 pence per share for each Salamander share, and values the entire issued share capital of Salamander at about £314mil (RM1.65bil). - The Star,
