Hungary's MOL Group announced via the Zagreb Stock Exchange (ZSE) on Friday that it had offered a price of HRK 2,800 per share to the small shareholders in Croatia's INA oil and gas company for the acquisition of their interest.
MOL's offer refers to a total of 800,910 shares or 8.009 percent which small shareholders hold.
Over the next two weeks MOL will contact INA shareholders and instruct them to accept this general offer. The instructions will include details explaining to shareholders how to accept such a general offer, including the deadline for their response, the procedure for signing the contract and the settlement procedure (the transfer of stocks and prices), MOL said in a statement.
Currently, the Hungarian company holds 47.155 percent of shares in INA, the Croatian government has a 44.836 percent interest, while the small shareholders hold 8.009 percent.
The Hungarian company also reiterated it already offered to shareholders to sell their stocks to MOL following a voluntary public auction in 2008, working together with the Croatian Government.
The company stressed that provisions of the Croatian law on the takeover of joint stock companies will not be applied to the general offer to INA's small shareholders.
MOL Group said yesterday it was giving its offer for the purchase of free float shares in INA at the price of HRK 2,800 per share, t
The spokesman for the MOL Group in Croatia, Domokos Szollar, said at a news conference in Zagreb on Thursday that this was the price at which MOL acquired INA's shares at the 2008 voluntary public auction, and that it was 56 percent higher than the average price of INA shares on the Zagreb Stock Exchange recently.
MOL has briefed the Croatian government about its intention, Szollar said, adding that MOL's private offer to the small shareholders does not undermine in any way the balance of relations between MOL and the government in INA.
The shareholders' agreement will not be altered in any part. Even if MOL acquires all eight percent of shares, there will be no change of the shareholders' agreement, he said.
The spokesman expects that the exact number of small shareholders willing to accept MOL's offer could be known around the New Year.
The Croatian Financial Services Supervisory Agency (HANFA) today ordered the Zagreb Stock Exchange to temporarily suspend, without delay, trading in shares of the INA joint-stock company. HANFA said the trading would be suspended until the public is fully and correctly informed about MOL's offer.
