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Monday, 01 December, 2008, 22:40 GMT | more >>

OMV unveils new MOL shares bid



By Upstream staff 

Austrian producer OMV, which unveiled a 23% rise in fourth-quarter profits today, called for a "quasi-treasury share" arrangement in some shares of merger target MOL to be unwound and for the shares to be regarded as treasury shares.

A resolution to be put to shareholders said the arrangement covered shareholders including BNP Paribas, OTP Bank and Czech energy company CEZ.

Hungarian player MOL and OMV have been in a stand-off since the second quarter of last year, when OMV first indicated its takeover plans.

The Austrian company holds 20.2% of MOL and has proposed a bid valuing its target at $20 billion.

OMV's bid is subject to MOL removing a 10% voting rights cap and on cancellation or neutralisation of a 40% stake in MOL controlled by its board and friendly institutions, a Reuters report said.

MOL has repeatedly rejected the approach and has spent almost $2.8 billion on share buybacks.

Reuters quoted the OMV resolution as saying: "MOL's board should ensure that such 'quasi-treasury shares' are treated in all respect as treasury shares for the purpose of Hungarian company law, particularly as regards the prohibition of exercise of voting rights and distribution of dividends."

OMV said it would put forward the resolution at MOL's annual shareholders' meeting on 24 April.

It said the sale of 7% of MOL to CEZ in December was "only the latest of a series of actions which appear both value-destructive and against the basic principles of good corporate governance".

Meanwhile, OMV booked a forecast-beating 23% increase in clean operating earnings in the fourth quarter on favourable crude prices and improved refining margins.

Group earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) rose to €688 million ($1.02 billion) after stripping out one-off items in the three months to December, while Romanian unit Petrom's clean EBIT contributed €237 million. Analysts polled by Reuters had, on average, forecast a 14% rise to €642 million.

Looking ahead to this year, OMV said it expected another set of robust earnings, adding it expected production volumes in Romania to increase.

"We expect the main market drivers (crude price, refining margins and the US dollar-euro exchange rate) to remain highly volatile throughout 2008," said OMV in a statement.

OMV said its reserve replacement rate was 46% in 2007, following 406% in 2006 after the inclusion of Petrom.


Tuesday, 26 February, 2008, 08:22 GMT  | last updated: Tuesday, 26 February, 2008, 08:23 GMT

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