INEOS Styrolution freezes at 20% upper circuit on voluntary delisting plan

The board of directors of the speciality chemicals company is scheduled to meet on August 23 to consider the voluntary delisting proposal

Shares of INEOS Styrolution were frozen in the upper circuit band of 20 per cent at Rs 466 apiece on the BSE on Monday after the promoter proposed voluntary delisting of the equity shares of the company. It has fixed an indicative delisting offer price of Rs 480 per share.

The board of directors of the speciality chemicals company is scheduled to meet on August 23, 2019 to consider the voluntary delisting proposal. Shares of the company are listed on the BSE and the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

“The company has received a letter dated August 16, 2019 from INEOS Styrolution APAC Pte. Ltd, the promoter of the company, wherein the promoter has expressed its intention to acquire 4.4 million equity shares, representing approximately 25 per cent of the paid-up equity share capital of the company held by the public shareholders,” INEOS Styrolution said in a regulatory filing.

Consequently, we propose to voluntarily delist the equity shares of the company from the stock exchanges where they are listed, in accordance with the delisting regulations, it added.

The promoter is willing to accept the equity shares tendered by the public shareholders during the delisting at an offer price of Rs 480, which represents a premium of 23 per cent over the closing market price of Rs 390 on August 14, 2019, it said.

The objective of the proposal, according to the company's statement, is to increase the ownership to support operational flexibility of the business and to provide an exit opportunity to the public shareholders of the company, given the low liquidity of equity shares on the stock exchanges. 

Thus far in the calendar year 2019, the stock has underperformed the market by falling 43 per cent, as compared to a 3.5 per cent rise in the S&P BSE Sensex till Friday, August 16th.

Till 09:36 am, a combined 4,699 equity shares changed hands on the NSE and BSE. There were pending buy orders for 906,562 shares, representing 5 per cent of the total equity of the company, the exchanges data show.