Hungary's MOL Group has 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, the spokesman for the MOL Group in Croatia, Domokos Szollar, said at a news conference in Zagreb on Thursday.
Szollar confirmed that the Hungarian group would like to become a majority owner in INA.
MOL Group is giving its offer for the purchase of free float shares in INA at the price of HRK 2,800 per share, the spokesman said.
This is the price at which MOL acquired INA's shares at a voluntary public auction in 2008, and it is 56 percent higher than the average price of INA shares on the Zagreb Stock Exchange recently.
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.
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 deadline for the response of the small shareholders has not been set yet.
The spokesman expects that the exact number of small shareholders willing to accept MOL's offer could be known around the New Year.
He said that this offer and the ongoing negotiations with the government on the possible divestiture of the gas business and the pertinent issue of gas price were two different things.
"We are still negotiating with the government about the gas business and we have promised that we will make no comments while the negotiations are going on, the MOL spokesman said.
Following speculations that the gas prices may go up, the NHS trade union federation on Thursday urged the government to drop the plans to increase gas prices.
