Aabar to acquire Austindo group’s 48.29 per cent stake in Pearl Energy
Posted: 30 January 2006
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Aabar, a UAE-based oil and gas company signed an agreement that will acquire Austindo interest of 214,200,016 ordinary shares in Pearl Energy. This represents a 48.29 per cent of Pearl Energy’s issued share capital.
 Under the terms of the option agreement, Austindo, an Indonesia-based group has granted a call option to Aabar to purchase the Austindo Group’s 48.29 per cent in Pearl Energy at S$1.95/share and Aabar has granted a put option to the Austindo Group to sell its 48.29 per cent stake in Pearl Energy to Aabar at S$1.95/share.
The option exercise price of S$1.95 per Pearl Energy share represents a transaction value of approximately S$418 million, which represents a 13 per cent premium to Pearl Energy’s last closing share price of S$1.73 and a 30 per cent premium to Pearl Energy’s volume weighted average price of S$1.50 for the last three months.
The Austindo Group and Aabar may exercise the put and call options during specified periods from 2 March 2006 until 28 April 2006 . Upon exercise of either the put or the call option, Aabar will launch a general offer to all shareholders of Pearl Energy. Pearl Energy is expected to announce its fiscal year 2005 results on 1 March 2006 .
As the first listed publicly owned oil and gas company in Abu Dhabi , Aabar's focus is to build a strong and fast growing business in oil and gas exploration and production and in oil and gas drilling. The acquisition of Dalma Energy in July 2005 marked Aabar's entry in the drilling business. This option agreement marks Aabar's first venture into the oil and gas exploration and production business, a business that Aabar's Board of Directors has identified as being at the core of Aabar's strategy.
Sohail Faris Ghanim Al Mazrui, Chairman of Aabar, said: "We are pleased to have entered into this agreement with the Austindo Group. We value the relationship which this agreement will provide us with Pearl Energy. Pearl Energy is an excellent company, which has demonstrated a proven track record in oil and gas exploration and production and fits with Aabar's objective of acquiring exploration and production companies such as Pearl Energy with clearly identified prospects for continued strong growth."
The Austindo Group was the founding investor and shareholder of Pearl Energy when PEARL Holdings was founded in April 2002. Along with Pacific East Asia Resources, co-founder of Pearl Energy, the Austindo Group has helped grow Pearl Energy from a small E&P company to one of the largest listed independent E&P companies in South East Asia .
George Tahija, Pr esident Director of the Austindo Group said: “I trust that Pearl Energy will continue its strong growth under Aabar.”
JPMorgan is acting as the financial advisor and Allen and Gledhill is acting as the legal advisor to the Austindo Group. Deutsche Bank is acting as the financial advisor and Wong Partnership and Simmons & Simmons are acting as the legal advisors to Aabar.
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