Essar Oil Delisting is Over or is It !? ~ Glitch or Golmaal !?

Essar Oil Delisting is Over or is It !? ~ Glitch or Golmaal !? 

Yesterday at 3.30 pm was the cut off time for all shares to be tendered in the Essar Oil reverse book building on BSE & NSE

The First criteria for the delisting endeavour to be considered successfull is that  at least a minimum number of 92,569,408 Shares be tendered  in valid bids from the 142489858 Equity Shares being 28.54% of the public shareholding that could

At  Closing 3.30 pm on Monday,December 21,2015  BSE & NSE showed aggregate cumulative bids for 101143045 shares

So then what’s the problem !?

1,98,99,305 shares from 8 bids all at Rs 262.80 are yet showing unconfirmed on the BSE Screen !

Seems there is a Glitch ! or was it a Golmaal !?….if so for what purpose ? …to derail the delisting effort !? If so ,why!?

Seems Ruias of Essar court controversy regularly….either they  follow it or it like a guided missile follows them !  

 The 8 Unconfirmed Bids for Rs 262.80 for 1,98,99,305 shares apparently is from the LIC Holdings of Essar Oil in their various portfolios

If you remove these unconfirmed bids then the valid bids aggregate just 81243740 shares which is short of the 92,569,408 shares requisite

BSE has referred the matter to SEBI for guidance as to whether they should accept the LIC Bids as confirmed and therefore valid….if they say ‘Yes’ and that it was a genuine issue by Stockholding who were unable to upload the bid as confirmed in time by 3.30 pm for LIC then we have the Discovered Price or Exit Price of Rs 262.80 provided this price is accepted by Oil Bidco( Mauritius ) Limited the Acquirer….they can of course offer an even higher price than this to garner more shares

Essar Oil has got to be extremely anxious for delisting….in 2014 I had raised a stink when they set a floor price of just Rs 108….SEBI had to stop the effort…..however they allowed it this time around  with a higher floor price of Rs 146.05….in my view they should not have until the Rosneft Deal price for acquiring 49% stake in Essar Oil which is being negotiated was announced

Essar Oil is anxious that the delisting takes place before the Rosneft deal as otherwise that would have triggered of an Open Offer by Rosneft and would have disturbed the Equity Stake Holdings by Essar Oil Promoters & Rosneft leaving Essar Oil Promoters vulnerable

Whatever ! ~ even if this delisting is allowed with LIC’s bid being accepted at Rs 262.80 the shareholders who bid below this price or the exit price to be announced by Oil Bidco  will also get the Discovered  Price which will now be established at a minimum of Rs 262.80. Oil Bidco can accept this Price or announce a higher one as the Exit Price .It of course can reject it and the delisting would then not have succeeded read more