Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Tuesday, Jun 17, 2003
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Tuesday, Jun 17, 2003 |
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Corporate
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Open Offers Poor response to Matrix Labs' open offer C.R. Sukumar
HYDERABAD, June 16 THE open offer at a price of Rs 276 to the shareholders of the Hyderabad-based drug company Matrix Laboratories Ltd (MLL) by its promoters could not evoke any interest since the MLL scrip reached the all- time high price of Rs 499 on the bourses across the country. The MLL scrip, which recorded a year's lowest of Rs 48.75 on June 14 last year, has been rising ever since the company announced its plans to acquire the Ranbaxy-controlled Vorin Laboratories Ltd and the Chennai-based Shriram group-managed Medicop Technologies Ltd. The scrip has recorded an increase of nearly ten times during the last one year to register the year's highest price of Rs 499 on June 13 this year. As a result of unusual spurt in price, the open offer could mobilise only 26,180 shares, amounting to 0.27 per cent of the company's equity, as against the proposed acquisition of 19.43 lakh shares, working out to 20 per cent, through the offer. The promoters, who were holding 35.35 per cent stake in the company, have already consolidated their holding through preferential offer by acquiring a holding of 26.04 per cent, taking their total holding to 61.39 per cent. Interestingly, the MLL Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mr N. Prasad, informed the exchanges that he has acquired 6.5-lakh equity shares of Vorin Labs recently. These shares would enable him to indirectly obtain additional one-lakh shares of MLL on conversion in terms of the scheme of amalgamation. Commenting on the development, a market analyst said: "Both the shareholders and promoters have gained in the process. The shareholders will have the benefit of spurt in scrip price, which is nearly double the level of offer price. The promoters will also be happy that they ended up with a controlling stake in the company with the preferential offer itself and they were not required to shell out over Rs 50 crore to acquire the 20 per cent as per SEBI guidelines."
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