OG Oil & Gas extends takeover offer for NZ Oil & Gas

OG Oil & Gas extends takeover offer for NZ Oil & Gas by a month

By Rebecca Howard

Oct. 25 (BusinessDesk) - OG Oil & Gas has extended the closing date of its partial takeover bid for New Zealand Oil & Gas by one month to Dec. 9, while shareholder H&G has tendered its entire 9.2 percent stake into the offer.

OGOG, the oil and gas division of Ofer Global, came in with a 77 cents per share offer for no more than 70 percent and at least a controlling stake and then sweetened the deal to 78 cents to fall within the valuation range, winning over NZOG's independent directors who unanimously backed the revised offer.

The offer is a 25 percent premium to NZOG's closing price on Aug. 9, the day prior to rival Zeta Energy lodging its intention to make a takeover offer. In September, Zeta Energy, a subsidiary of Zeta Resources, formally lodged its offer of 72 cents a share for a controlling stake. That offer did not meet the minimum acceptance condition and lapsed.

As of Wednesday, OGOG held 15.777 percent of the company, including the H&G stake. "We’ve tendered all our shares because we want this deal to succeed and we think 78 cents is a fair price," said David Cushing, managing director of H&G. Cushing had previously told BusinessDesk H&G would accept the OGOG offer.

OGOG aims to preserve NZOG's exploration opportunities and has named the Barque prospect off the Canterbury coast as too interesting to ignore. If it wins over shareholders it plans to find international partners for the deepwater prospect, which was ranked ninth among the world's top oil and gas targets in a survey presented to a recent petroleum conference in New Zealand. In contrast, Zeta wanted NZOG to scale back its business.

OGOG is the oil and gas business of Ofer Global, a private portfolio of international businesses chaired by Eyal Ofer.

The shares last traded at 72 cents and are up 14 percent this year.

(BusinessDesk)

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