ABG Shipyard ups offer for Great Offshore to Rs520 a share

ABG Shipyard Ltd, the flagship company of ABG group, has raised its open offer price for acquiring a controlling stake in offshore oilrig caterer Great Offshore to Rs520 a share.

This is the second time that ABG is revising its offer price for Great Offshore since it made the offer of Rs375 a share in June, upping a Rs344 a share offer by rival Bharti Shipyard.

ABG revised its original offer price of Rs375 to Rs450 a share on July 20. (See: ABG Shipyard ups ante for Great Offshore; Bharti may follow suit)

ABG is slugging it out with Bharati Shipyard to acquire Great Offshore and the current offer price revision by ABG is the latest in a string of counter-bids by the two shipbuilders.
(See: Bharti Shipyard, ABG continue battle for Great Offshore stake)

Great Offshore reported a 27 per cent growth in fiscal first quarter (April-June 2009-10) total Income of Rs229.26 crore and an 84 per cent jump in profit after tax (PAT) at Rs22.20 crore.

The board of Great Offshore Ltd, at its meeting today, approved the standalone - unaudited financial results (provisional) for the three months ended 30 June 2009.

Standalone income from operations rose 21.89 per cent to Rs247.04 crore against Rs202.68 crore in the same quarter of the previous fiscal. Operational EBIDTA rose 15 per cent to Rs97.32 crore from Rs84.27 crore in the corresponding quarter of the 2008-09 fiscal.

During the quarter, ABG said, its drilling rigs were fully utilised as in the corresponding period. Of the eligible revenue days, offshore supply vessels registered a utilisation of around 72 per cent (previous period 88 per cent). The marine construction barge had a utilisation level of 91 per cent (corresponding period 58 per cent) largely for in-house project execution work while the harbour tugs clocked a utilisation of 91 per cent (corresponding period 72 per cent), ABG said in a release.