Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) has opened talks to buy out Oman Oil Company in the subsidiary Bina Oil Refinery Ltd (BORL), acting chairman and managing director K Padmakar has said.

“We have just opened dialogue with Oman Oil; both sides are open to a deal,” Padmakar told a media briefing on Monday.

N Vijayagopal, Director - Finance, added: “Oman Oil has expressed interest to divest its stake in BORL. It’s a commercial deal which makes sense to both of us. We are not averse to completing the transaction before privatisation of BPCL subject to a decent deal”.

BORL became a subsidiary of BPCL in March this year when it converted warrants into shares taking the state-owned refiner’s stake in the erstwhile equal joint venture to 63 per cent.

In addition to the equity investment in BORL, BPCL had subscribed to Zero Percent Compulsorily Convertible Debentures of ₹1,000 crore and share warrants of ₹1,585.68 crores which on conversion would turn BORL into a subsidiary of BPCL.

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Vijayagopal said that BPCL will sell 7.33 per cent out of the 9.33 per cent shares held by the BPCL Trust of Investment in shares in a “bulk or block deal if at all we decide to sell these shares”.

BPCL Trust for Investment in shares currently holds 9.33 per cent stake of BPCL’s paid-up share capital. Of this, 2 per cent will be offered to specified employees through a proposed Employee Stock Purchase Scheme (ESPS) and the residual shares would be sold through bulk or block deal.

 

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