(Alliance News) - Blake Holdings Ltd on Monday said its mandatory offer for Hardy Oil & Gas PLC has become unconditional in all respects as it owned or had received valid acceptances from around 57% of shareholders.
Shares in Hardy were down 14% at 4.86 pence in London on Monday afternoon.
On November 25, Blake agreed to buy 9.2 million Hardy shares and, as such, was required to make a mandatory cash offer for all of the company's shares. Blake is offering 5.00p per share in a GBP3.7 million bid.
As of Monday, acceptances had been received in respect of 11.1 million Hardy shares, representing a 15% of Hardy's share capital.
Given that Blake already held shares representing 42% stake before these acceptances, the combined total of owned and accepted shares came to 42.3 million shares, or 57% holding.
Having passed the 50% acceptance threshold, the offer has been declared unconditional and will thus remain open for a further 14 days past the first closing date - Tuesday this week - until January 21.
On December 23, Hardy said Executive Director Richard Galvin does not plan on accepting the offer, though Non-Executive Chair Alasdair Locke and Non-Executive Director Peter Milne were intending to accept the bid in the event that it became unconditional.
At that time, Hardy said the Blake bid materially undervalued the firm and noted that the 5.00p per share offer represented a 54% discount to its November 30 net asset value per share of 10.90p. Nonetheless, Hardy was not able to give a recommendation to shareholders on whether or not to accept the deal.
By Anna Farley; annafarley@alliancenews.com
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