Essar Ports on Friday informed the stock exchanges that the company has discovered the exit price for its voluntary delisting at Rs 133 per share, taking into account the shares tendered by public shareholders through the reverse book building (RBB) process.
“The discovered pursuant to tendering in the reverse book building process in terms of the delisting regulations is R133 per equity share (“exit price”). The promoter has accepted the exit price as the final price for the delisting offer. The company had set a floor price of Rs 93.66 per share to acquire shares from public shareholders,” the company said in a stock exchange filing.
Essar Ports closed at Rs 128.65 per share, up Rs 1 or 0.78% from the previous close. In contrast, the Sensex ended down 256.42 points or 1% at 25610.53.
The promoters holding in the company stood at 74.97%, while institutions and non-institutions held 11.79% and 13.24%, respectively. In the past one year, shares of Essar Ports have jumped 27%, while the Sensex dipped 7.35% during the same period.
Sebi amended delisting regulations in March 2015, including reducing overall timeline for a delisting offer, allowing significant acquirers to make a consolidated delisting-cum-takeover offer, and revising the price discovery mechanism. This reflects a more market friendly approach towards delisting offers, which is a marked shift from 2009 (when the delisting regulations come into force).
Another group company, Essar Oil, has proposed to delist shares from the stock exchanges. Last week, market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) asked Essar Group’s Ruias to raise the delisting price for Essar Oil’s shareholders, in line the valuations that Russian oil giant Roseneft has offered to pay the promoters to buy a stake in the company.
In July, Shashi and Ravi Ruia agreed to sell 49% stake in Essar Oil to Roseneft for a price that valued the company at $7-8 billion (Rs 42,000-48,000 crore), according to reports. Then, the market value of Essar Oil was close to Rs 26,000 crore. On Friday, Essar Oil was valued at Rs 26,827 crore.
The capital markets regulator, in an order late on Friday, said it has directed Essar Oil to increase the delisting price after it received complaints from shareholders. This is a rare instance where Sebi has asked company promoters to revise the delisting offer based on a deal.
The Essar promoters have, however, given an undertaking to Sebi that they would match the price once the deal is concluded, the regulator said in the order.