Essar Oil completes Rs3,745-crore dilisting
31 Dec 2015
Essar oil today announced the completion of the company's delisting from the local stock exchanges after a payout of Rs3,745 crore to shareholders, the largest in India's corporate history.
''Oil Bidco (Mauritius) Limited, promoter of Essar Oil Ltd (EOL), is pleased to announce the successful completion of EOL's delisting offer process, which has emerged as the largest privatisation bid in the history of corporate India, valuing EOL at Rs38,000 crore ($5.75 billion) of market capitalisation,'' the company said in a release.
Of the 142.5 million shares held by public shareholders, the promoters have acquired 101 million shares through an offer made to shareholders, as against the requirement of 92.6 million shares for delisting.
The shareholders tendered their shares between 15 December 2015 and 21 December 2015, through the reverse book building window made available to them under the delisting regulations. While the floor price for the delisting was set at Rs146.05 per share, Oil Bidco (Mauritius) Limited has agreed to pay Rs262.80 per share - which is a premium of 80 per cent.
The Rs3,745 crore that will be paid to shareholders makes this the largest payout to privatise a publicly listed company in India.
Further, the shareholders who have not tendered their shares in the delisting offer can offer their shares to the promoters at the delisting price for a period of one year from the date of delisting.
Commenting on the transaction, Shashi Ruia, founder chairman, Essar, said, ''We are happy that we have been able to reward our public and institutional shareholders for the faith they reposed in us over the years. I want to take this opportunity to thank investors, stock exchanges and regulators for their support in this journey.''
The Essar Oil Limited stock has seen sustained and significant growth since its IPO in 1995. The company's market capitalisation, which stood at Rs2,000 crore in 1995, is today over Rs38,000 crore at the delisting price.
This, according to the promoters, has been made possible through strategic investments in the business since commencement of commercial operations at the Vadinar refinery in May 2008, especially in expanding and upgrading refining capacity - from 9 million tonnes to 20 million tonnes, and complexity - from 6.1 to 11.8 million tpa.
Over the years, Essar Group, through privatisation of its corporate entities Essar Oil Ltd, Essar Ports Ltd, Essar Steel Ltd and India Securities Ltd, has made a payout of over Rs7,200 crore to investors, thus providing substantial returns.
With this transaction, Essar ranks among one of the world's largest privately-held conglomerates with large-scale, world-class operations across the globe, spanning oil refining and marketing, power, steel, ports, shipping, EPC and BPO.
Essar businesses have revenues of over $35 billion and employ more than 60,000 people.
The group's flagship Essar Oil Ltd operates the 20 million tonne Vadinar refinery. Essar Power Ltd has a generation capacity of 6,700MW. Essar Steel Ltd has current capacity of 14 million tonnes. Essar Ports operates terminal services with aggregate capacity of 120 million tonnes. Essar Projects is a leading EPC contractor.