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It seems JSPL’s 100 per cent takeover bid for the Australian miner Gujarat NRE Coking Coal Ltd is intended to reduce the public holding rather than a management change.
JSPL has acquired around 10 per cent stake in the Australian subsidiary of Gujarat NRE Coke since it opened its open offer. It has extended the bid closing date by a fortnight to March 29.
GNCCL has asked its shareholders to reject the JSPL offer. GNCCL directors and major shareholders controlled around 64.1 per cent in company, it claimed.
However, HSBC Global Asset Management (Singapore) Ltd, a substantial stakeholder in GNCCL, offloaded 1.85 crore shares to JSPL that raised its stake to 29 per cent in GNCCL.
“We are ready to pick up whatever comes our way,” JSPL says. Nevertheless, JSPL wants to play down the takeover angle.
“We are complying with the Australian Securities Exchange norms, which needed us to make a 100 per cent open offer,” Sushil Maroo, Director and group CFO of JSPL, told Business Line.
In August last year, JSPL picked up around 20 per cent stake in GNCCL as part of a “strategic relationship,” and also an agreement for an off-take of 7 lakh tonnes of coal a year for 10 years.
Maroo insisted that whatever came in JSPL’s way would be picked up. “The strategic relationship between the two would, however, remain intact despite the bid outcome,” he added.
There was no response to an e-mailed query from Business Line to Aurn Kumar Jagatramka, the Executive Chairman of GNCCL.
But in its filing to the ASX, GNCCL pointed out that, “Jindal (JSPL) acquired a large part of its current shareholding in GNCCL at a price of A$0.25, above the current offer price of A$0.20.”
GNCCL further said the net asset value of a share of the company is A$0.48, according to its half-yearly figures to September 30, 2012.
Between these claims and counter claims, the stock now rules at the price offered by JSPL. Before the announcement of takeover on January 31, the average price of the stock during September to December 2012 was around A$0.17.
The on-going takeover bid has also made the stock active on a lower public holding of around 7 per cent. Around 15.14 lakh shares changed hands on the ASX on Tuesday.
jayanta.mallick@thehindu.co.in
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