Alstom-Schneider combine that acquired global transmission & distribution business of power equipment and systems company Areva has made an open offer to acquire 20% additional stake in Areva T&D India, the public listed arm of Areva.
The open offer has been made at Rs 295.34 a piece, 10.5% premium to the closing price of the scrip on Thursday at NSE. The stock was up 7% in early morning trade as arbitrageurs got in to take advantage of capital gain possibilities.
At the open offer price, Alstom-Schneider will have to shell out as much as Rs 1,410 crore (~$ 310 million) if they manage to buy out the entire shares as per the offer. Incidentally, promoter holding in Areva T&D India is around 72% stake and another 20% stake would make a case for delisting the firm.
For the year ended December’09, Areva T&D had net sales of Rs 3,565 crore with net profit of Rs 192 crore. It had reserves of over Rs 800 crore for 2009.
The Areva stock was up 3% and was trading at Rs 300 soon after the announcement of the global deal appeared in December last year. According to a statement issued at that time, Alstom-Schneider pipped GE and Toshiba-INCJ to win the bid for T&D business of Areva for € 2.29 billion in equity or € 4.09 billion in enterprise value.
Among those who were interested in bidding for the business included India’s Avantha Group which has power sector equipment exposure through Crompton Greaves.