Sebi Clears Sesa Goa Open Offer for Cairn India

31 Mar 2011 Evaluate

Vedanta Resources has moved closer to acquiring control of Cairn India, with capital market regulator Sebi clearing its subsidiary Sesa Goa’s open offer for shareholders of the Indian oil and gas explorer. Sebi approved the open offer after Vedanta carried out a few changes in the share purchase agreement it had entered into with UK-based Cairn Energy Plc and also agreed to provide more disclosures.

The earlier agreement had built-in clauses that would have ensured Vedanta would have got more shares from Cairn Energy if the open offer for acquiring at least 20% stake from shareholders of its Indian unit received lukewarm response. Sebi objected to this on the ground that it amounted to forward contracting, in violation of Indian laws. The regulator then told Vedanta to revise some of the clauses in the share purchase agreement that has now been done.

The company will also provide a disclosure in its open offer announcement that there are issues with state-run ONGC that are unresolved and could impact the stock price. The original terms of the agreement provided that if Vedanta was able to secure the entire 20% stake through the open offer, the British company would only sell 40% of its stake in the Indian unit to Vedanta. However, if the mining firm was unable to acquire the entire 20%, then Cairn Energy would sell more shares of its Indian unit to Vedanta so that it could control at least 51% stake in the company. In line with the takeover norms, Sesa Goa will now be able to launch the open offer within 15 days. Priced at 355 a share, this offer aims at buying a 20% stake in Cairn India.crackcrack

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