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Journalism of Courage
MUMBAI, February 26: In a new twist to the Indian Aluminium (Indal) takeover drama, Alcan Aluminium of Canada, the 34.6 per cent owner of the Indian company, has announced its intention to make a counter offer in retaliation to the Rs 90 per share offer made by Sterlite Industries. The offer would be made within the next 21 days deadline as per SEBI guidelines.
Addressing a crowded news conference, S M Datta, chairman of Indal, said in a “board meet held here today the directors have decided to make a recommendation to its shareholders by March 12. Therefore, the board has constituted a committee of non-executive and independent directors to study the Sterlite offer and make a recommendation to its board.” The committee will consist of S M Datta, former ICICI Securities managing director N J Jhaveri and Deepak Parekh of HDFC.
Datta said the committee will consider the offer by Sterlite and thereafter render its advice to the board within seven days from today. "The board has decided that in the interestof the shareholders it is important to have an unbiased evaluation of Sterlite’s offer giving its recommendation by March 12," Datta said. On behalf of Alcan, Suresh Thadani, vice president and chief financial officer of the company, said they have viewed Sterlite’s offer as "not friendly" and it is considering the option of a counter-offer.
As the Sebi takeover code says that the counter offer should be made within 21 days of the first offer announcement, Alcan will have to take a decision soon as Sterlite’s offer opened on last Friday. If Alcan makes a counter offer, the offer price will have to be above the Rs 90 per share offered by Sterlite Reacting to the Alcan offer, Sterlite said that it had made a "friendly" open offer to acquire a stake in Indal in accordance with the Sebi rules. Sterlite has had dicussions with other major shareholders and is satisfied with these discussuions, it said, adding, “Sterlite will respond as and when any counter offer is made by Alcan.”
