Zuari Group pledges 8.23% stake in MCFL to HDFC

Zuari Group has pledged its 8.23 per cent stake in Mangalore Chemicals and Fertilisers Ltd (MCFL) to HDFC for partly financing its acquisition of 36.56 per cent stake in the company.
Zuari Group is set to become the majority stakeholder in MCFL as its open offer to acquire 36.56 per cent stake in Vijay Mallya promoted MCFL has been over-subscribed.
In a BSE filing today, HDFC informed that 97.57 lakh shares of MCFL, representing 8.23 per cent stake in the company, have been pledged to the financial institution.
According to sources, Zuari Group has pledged its 8.23 per cent stake to MCFL for partly financing its acquisition for nearly Rs 400 crore.

Zuari Group's open offer to acquire an additional 36.56 per cent stake in MCFL started on April 20. It currently has 16.47 per cent stake in the fertiliser firm.
The group will complete the process of acquiring about 4.33 crore shares from MCFL's shareholders this week, raising its stake to 53.03 per cent.

Zuari was competing with Deepak Fertilisers for taking control of MCFL since July 2013, but later withdrew from the race and has been selling shares of MCFL through open market.
As many as 5.2 crore shares have been tendered against the offer to acquire 4.33 crore shares of MCFL.

After the transfer of these 4.33 crore shares, Zuari Group would have 53.03 per cent stake in MCFL.
UB Group, the original promoter, has 21.97 per cent stake.
As per the shareholding pattern on BSE, both Zuari Group and UB Group are in the list of promoters. Together, they will have 75 per cent stake in MCFL.
Zuari Group had announced the open offer in December 2014 to buy 4,33,29,000 shares in MCFL at Rs 91.92 per share.
Meanwhile, Pune-based Deepak Fertilisers has reduced its stake in the MCFL to 6.43 per cent from 31.25 per cent in December last year.

MCFL has a urea plant near Mangalore port with an annual capacity to produce about 4 lakh tonnes of urea and about 3 lakh tonnes of phosphatic fertilisers.
Zuari Group has a fertiliser plant in Goa.