Great Offshore...The great takeover tussle continues

The high stakes battle for the control of Great Offshore escalated further after ABG Shipyard raised the open offer price to acquire a 32.12% stake in the offshore service provider to the oil & gas industry to Rs450 a share. The earlier open offer price was Rs375 a share. On July 29, ABG Shipyard bought 5.3% stake in Great Offshore through a series of block deals taking its stake to 7.3%. It bought a further 212,348 shares of Great Offshore (0.6% stake) at Rs450 a share on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), taking its total shareholding above 8%. Bharati Shipyard owns 19.5% of Great Offshore and has announced an open offer at Rs405 a share. The two companies have time till August 24 to change their offer price. Bharati Shipyard acquired a 14.89% stake in Great Offshore in May, at a price of Rs315 per share, from its vice chairman and managing director, Vijay Sheth, following an invocation of shares which he had pledged. This left Sheth with less than one per cent stake in the company and he lost control of the company. Bharati Shipyard needs just 6% to become a 26% shareholder and that will give it the power to block special resolutions.