Cairn placing raises US$ 822 mn

Mumbai, Nov 23 (UNI) UK oil explorer Cairn Energy today said it has raised US$ 822 million in a pre-flotation placing of shares in its Indian operations, with Malaysian state oil firm Petronas buying the bulk of the stock.

The pre-flotation private placing closed on Wednesday and 209.67 million Cairn India shares have been placed at a price of Rs 176.48 per share, raising a total of Rs 3700 crore, dollar equivalent of US$ 822.47 million. If the flotation price per share is lower than Rs 176.48, the placing price will be reduced accordingly, a Cairn press release said.

Cairn said Malaysian state oil company Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas) had bought 176.5 million of the shares, or about 10 per cent of the expected share capital of Cairn India.

''This is the first public indication of support Cairn has had from industry, which is another tick in the box for shareholders; but in our opinion it makes a near-term takeover considerably less likely,'' Bridgewell Securities analyst Al Stanton wrote in a research note.

A spokeswoman said Cairn still expected to raise around $1.8 billion in total from the flotation but because the pre-flotation placing had gone so well, it was reducing the public offering of Cairn India shares to 328.8 million shares from 538.5 million.

It said the placing price implied a market value of around Rs 31,150 crore or US$ 6.92 billion, for Cairn India. The firm said it remained on track to complete the flotation in December.

Merrill Lynch and ABN Amro were joint co-ordinators of the placing.

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