Zuari raises open offer size to buy stake in MCFL to Rs 398 cr

Zuari group today announced plans to spend Rs 398.2 crore to buy up to 36.56 per cent stake in MCFL, about 10 per cent more stake than its earlier offer.
Kolkata-based industrialist Saroj Poddar-led Zuari group has been competing with Pune-based Deepak Fertilisers for taking control of the Mangalore Chemicals and Fertilisers Ltd (MCFL), since July last year.
At present, UB group has 21.97 per cent stake in MCFL, while Zuari group and Deepak Fertilisers have 16.47 per cent and 31.25 per cent stakes respectively, in the MCFL.
Earlier this month, the Zuari group had announced a voluntary open offer to acquire 25.9 per cent stake in MCFL.

In a filing to the BSE, Zuari group today revised the open offer size to 4,33,29,000 equity shares representing 36.56 per cent of the share capital.
However, Zuari has retained the price of open offer at Rs 91.92 per share. MCFL shares today closed at Rs 89.90 apiece.

With increase in the offer size, Zuari group will now have to spend Rs 398.2 crore from the earlier Rs 282.19 crore.
The battle for MCFL between Deepak Fertilisers and Zuari Group was triggered in July 2013 when the latter bought about 10 per cent stake in MCFL through open market.
Later, Deepak Fertilisers acquired 24.46 per cent stake in MCFL in one go in July 2013. After that, Zuari group had increased its stake to 16.43 per cent in the same month.

Deepak Fertilisers further raised its 25.31 per cent stake in MCFL in April 2014, triggering the need for launch of mandatory open offer.
Vijay Mallya-led UB group had sided with Zuari group to launch the counter open offer, which opened on October 1 and closed on October 20, to ward off the takeover bid of Deepak Fertilizers.
In that open offer, Zuari group was able to buy only 42,424 shares as its offer price was lower than Deepak's offer price of Rs 93.60 per share.
However, Deepak Fertilisers was able to raise its stake in MCFL by about 6 per cent to 31.25 per cent.