Sebi View On Seamec Open Offer Soon

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is close to signing the final order for the open offer from Technip Group of France after its takeover of Seamec (erstwhile Peerless Shipping). However the stock price of the company has been extremely volatile and in the last 14 trading sessions the scrip price has dipped around 44 per cent.

The stock slipped to Rs 60.60 on August 26 from Rs 107.10 on August 6 amid huge volumes. Speculations over the proposed offer price have been used to make intra-day profits.

On Thursday, the stock opened at Rs 68, went to a high of Rs 68.50, while the low for the day was Rs 61. The stock closed at Rs 63.75 compared to its previous close of Rs 68.50. The stock, which sees active trading on the NSE, witnessed volumes of 7.72 lakh shares on the exchange.

Around a fortnight back the final hearing on the open offer was conducted by Sebi. Technip group agreed to the open offer but the pricing still remained an issue. It was left to Sebi's legal department to take a view on the reference date for the final offer price.

Officially there has been no communication from Sebi but sources indicate that the reference date has been fixed at July 2001 based on which the offer price would be around 80 a share. Originally Sebi had taken the view that April 2000, when the management of the company changed should have been reference date which would put the offer price at Rs 240 a share.

The market has taken advantage of this delay on the part of Sebi and rumour mongering has contributed to the price movements in the market. Dealers said that insiders in the know of the actual pricing were selling the stock in the market.

Several investors have now complained to Sebi of possible insiders trading on the stock. Recently, two Mumbai-based investors filed complaints with the market regulator in this regard.

Technip had acquired 29.7 per cent in Coflexip Stena Offshore from Stena International sometime in April 2000. Technip made an open offer in July 2001 to the minority shareholders of Coflexip Stena. With this, Technip also got indirect control of Coflexip Stena's 58.2 per cent stake in its subsidiary Seamec (South-East Asia Marine Engineering & Construction).

Therefore, the takeover code was effective in this case, and an open offer had to be made. However, Technip has so far not made an open offer.