KARACHI: Pakistan State Oil Company (PSO) has acquired 84 million Class-B shares of Shell Petroleum Company Limited, United Kingdom in Pakistan Refinery Limited (PRL), a bourse filing said.
The aforesaid shares acquired by PSO were formally transferred on December 01, 2018 resulting in total shareholding of PSO increasing to 52.67 percent in PRL.
Effective December 01, 2018, PSO holds 154.875 million Class-B shares in PRL. It is also informed that Class-B shares of PRL are not listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX).
It may be mentioned here during the year ended June 30, 2016, PRL issued 259 million right shares out of the total size of issue of 280 million rights shares at the rate of Rs. 10 each, as 21 million right shares were not issued due to the restraining order obtained by one of the Class-B shareholder Pakistan State Oil Company Limited against another Class-B shareholder Chevron Global Energy Inc. (Chevron).
The order directed all the defendants to maintain status quo in respect of the letters of rights issued to and shares held by Chevron; and restrained Chevron from creating any third party interest in respect of shares offered to it under the letters of rights issued to another class-B shareholder namely Shell Petroleum Company Limited.
On May 4, 2015, PRL issued the Letter of Rights in line with the decision of its board of directors, offering its shareholders 800 percent of the total shares that the respective shareholders held as on April 10, 2015 at par value of Rs10/share as the rights issue.
Shell sought offers from the two companies – PSO and Chevron – for the 84 million shares offered to Shell under the rights issue. Of these, 63 million shares were offered to PSO and the remaining 21 million to Chevron in accordance with provisions of the participants’ agreement.
According to the agreement, if Chevron failed to accept Shell’s offer within the prescribed 30 days, PSO would also become entitle to acquiring the 21 million shares offered to Chevron. PSO conveyed to Shell its intent to acquire, subject to Chevron’s response, all the 84 million shares.
On June 16, 2015, PSO and Shell signed a share purchase agreement for the acquisition of 84 million shares in PRL.