3rd Jan 2019 11:18
LONDON (Alliance News) - DNO ASA on Thursday said that it increased its stake in Faroe Petroleum PLC to 30% and, as a result, its GBP567 million takeover offer for UK-listed oil and gas company is now mandatory offer pursuant to takeover rules.
The Norwegian oil firm has through market purchases acquired 372,890 Faroe shares for between 147 pence and 148p per Faroe share, which has increased DNO's holding to 30% in Faroe. Its cash offer is at a premium to this, at 152p a share.
DNO said its now mandatory offer has been further extended in accordance with takeover rules to January 18.
Earlier on Thursday, DNO had extended its "full, fair - and in retrospect, even generous - offer" by two weeks to January 16 and said that it is not going anywhere even if its hostile takeover bid fails.
Faroe currently has 372.89 million shares in issue, valuing the DNO offer at around GBP566.79 million. Shares in Faroe were trading 4.8% higher at 153.00p each on Thursday.
In a separate response statement on Thursday, Faroe reiterated that DNO's 152p per share offer price is opportunistic and substantially undervalues the company.
Faroe also said DNO's increasing attacks on the Faroe's exploration record and implied criticism of technical team is "puzzling" as Faroe would provide DNO with a high-quality full cycle and diversified North Sea asset base that is in stark contrast to DNO's existing business.
DNO's statement that it is "not going away" demonstrates the attractiveness of Faroe to DNO, the UK company said. DNO's offer extension and further share purchases clearly suggest that it has every intention to pursue its unsolicited offer despite its earlier statements raising the prospect that the offer may lapse if sufficient acceptances were not received by Wednesday.
As of Wednesday, DNO had received acceptances for its takeover offer from 13.1% shareholders. As it now owns 30% of Faroe itself, DNO has support for its offer from 43.1% of the issued share capital of Faroe, below the 57.5% plus one share required.
Related Shares:
Faroe Petroleum Plc