Deepak Fertilisers sells 12.07% stake in Mangalore Chemicals
Move comes days before rival Zuari Fertilisers launches an open offer for Mangalore Chemicals shares on 21 April
Deepak Fertilisers and Petrochemicals Corp. Ltd on Monday sold a 12.07% stake in Mangalore Chemicals and Fertilizers Ltd in the market, days before rival firm Zuari Fertilisers and Chemicals Ltd launches an open offer for Mangalore Chemicals shares on 21 April.
The subsidiaries of Deepak Fertilisers, including SCM Soilfert Ltd, sold 14.3 million shares, representing a 12.07% stake in Mangalore Chemicals, stock exchange data show.
Deepak Fertilisers unsucessfully fought a takeover battle with Saroj Kumar Poddar-led Zuari Fertilisers for Vijay Mallya-promoted Mangalore Chemicals.
Deepak Fertilisers sold 2.2% of Mangalore Chemicals in December in nine separate open-market transactions, following which its stake in Mangalore Chemicals dropped to 29.05%. After the market transactions on Monday, Deepak Fertilisers’ stake in Mangalore Chemicals has come down to 16.98%. At the end of December, Zuari held a 16.47% stake in Mangalore Chemicals.
The tendering of shares towards Zuari will start on 21 April and ends on 6 May. Zuari has offered ₹ 91.92 per share.
Kolkata-based industrialist Poddar’s Adventz Group came to the defence of Mallya’s UB Group in April 2012 after Deepak Fertilisers launched a hostile takeover bid for Mangalore Chemicals. On Monday, shares of Deepak Fertiliser closed at ₹ 147.75 on BSE, up 5.2%, while the benchmark Sensex rose 0.57% to 29,044.44 points. Mangalore Chemicals ended at ₹ 87.55 on BSE, down 0.91%.
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