ZOL.L Regulatory News (ZOL)

13 Mar 2007 11:13

Crosby Capital Partners Inc13 March 2007 CROSBY CAPITAL PARTNERS INC. SUCCESSFUL TAKEOVER BID FOR ORCHARD PETROLEUM LTD. Crosby Capital Partners Inc. ("Crosby") is pleased to report that today EskdalePetroleum Pty Ltd. ("Eskdale") announced, via the Australian Stock Exchange("ASX"), that, having received acceptances in respect of 90.47% of the issuedshares of Orchard Petroleum Ltd. ("Orchard") plus 100% of the options, the offeris now fully unconditional. Eskdale also confirmed that it will not extend theoffer beyond the current deadline of 7pm (Sydney) on 15 March 2007. ABOUT ORCHARD PETROLEUM • Orchard Petroleum is an upstream oil and gas company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ticker - OPL AU). • At the A$0.81 offer price, Orchard has a market capitalisation of approximately US$130 million. • OPL has a portfolio of 11 high quality projects, the majority of which are operated by OPL. Five of the projects are in partnership with Aera (Shell - Exxon Mobil JV and California's largest producer) and another on acreage leased from Occidental Petroleum. • All of the projects are onshore California in the prolific San Joaquin and Sacramento basins. Eleven of the top 100 US oil fields are in the San Joaquin basin, including 4 of the top 10. • OPL's project leases are all adjacent to and extensions of existing giant mature producing oil and gas fields, with an abundance of infrastructure to supply the vast US market. ABOUT ESKDALE Eskdale owns directly 9,056,225 shares of Orchard, representing 4.52% ofOrchard's issued share capital. Eskdale also owns all of the issued sharecapital of the Crosby Orchard Fund Inc. which in turn owns 14,728,814 shares ofOrchard, representing 7.34% of Orchard's issued share capital. On 1 December 2006, Eskdale made a cash offer to Orchard's shareholders topurchase their shares in Orchard for A$0.81 each. Crosby currently owns 100% of the ordinary share capital of ESK Limited, theholding company of Eskdale, which represents 30% of its total issued sharecapital. The Crosby Active Opportunities Fund, which is managed by Crosby AssetManagement, currently owns 61.8% of the total issued share capital of ESKLimited through its investment in preference shares. These percentage holdingswill change prior to the completion of the acquisition of all the issued sharecapital of Orchard. ABOUT CROSBY CAPITAL PARTNERS Crosby Capital Partners Inc. is a leading independent deal-focused Asia-orientedmerchant banking and asset management group. Crosby is quoted on the AIM marketof the London Stock Exchange. Further details can be found on the Company'swebsite www.crosby.com. For further information on Crosby please contact: Steve Fletcher, Chief Operating Officer on +44 20 7590 2800 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange