Euro-Nat bids continue

Press, 31 July 1986, Page 31

Euro-Nat bids continue

Euro-National Corporation, Ltd, will continue its takeover bids for New Zealand Oil and Gas, Ltd, and United Resources Investment Holdings, Ltd, despite the defensive moves of those companies. Euro-National said in a statement last evening that both it and United Resources had withdrawn theirs injunctions against each othety<enabling the bid to proceed. Euro-National would be sending out its take-over offers as soon as possible. In a separate statement, the directors of the closely associated companies NZOG, United Resources and Oil Fields, said Euro-National had also withdrawn its injunction against Oil Fields and agreed to amend its offers to “correct certain legal defects.” United Resources and NZOG had accordingly withdrawn their injunctions which were preventing the takeover offers being mailed out. The directors of. United Resources and NZOG had already recommended against acceptance of the offers and said they would make a final recommendation when they were mailed out. The directors of EuroNational have expressed surprise and concern at the nature of the defensive moves of the directors of the three oil exploration companies. "While we did not expect a

favourable response from the directors of these companies, we are concerned about the Implications of their defensive moves for the shareholders in these companies,” said Mr Rod Petricevic, managing director of EuroNational. However, Euro-National had already received a number of unsolicited responses supporting the bid from institutional and major private shareholders in both NZOG and United Resources. These shareholders were enthusiastic about the offer and wished to accept it. In defensive moves carried out earlier this month, the chairman of United Resources, Mr R. A. Radford, announced the sale of 13,333,550 unlisted options in NZOG to Oil Fields for cash and shares. Also, as chairman of Oil Fields, Mr Radford said that Oil Fields would execute these options in NZOG if necessary to prevent a change of control of NZOG. The purchase of the NZOG. options cost Oil Fields $1.3 million and, should they be executed, would require the payment of a further $2.9 million to NZOG on execution, plus a payment of $3.75 million on June 30, 1987. “The acquisition and exercise of these options would cost Oil Fields a total of $8 million, severely depleting their estimated cash reserves of $11.7 million,” Mr Petricevic said. “To us this appears con-

trary to their statement regarding plans to expand their activity base. We also have to question whether it will be to the benefit of United Resources’ shareholders.” Euro-National is making a partial take-over offer for the two companies. They are seeking 51 per cent of NZOG’s shares and 84 per cent of NZOG’s unlisted options, as well as 78.5 per cent of United Resources’ shares and 50 per cent of United

Resources’ listed options. Euro-National is offering 45 cents cash for each ordinary share in NZOG or United Resources, or one EuroNational share for every 12 NZOG or United Resources shares. For the options in the two companies, EuroNational's offer is 12 cents cash an option or one EuroNational share for every 30 NZOG unlisted options, or every 40 United Resources listed options.