Gulfsands Petroleum (LON:GPX) (Hold, TP 300p) (GPX LN, 16.7p, ? (x.1.6%)) announced that on 27 April 2010 it received a reiteration of the original proposal from the Consortium of Oil India Limited and Indian Oil Corporation Limited following their initial approach regarding a possible offer for the Company on 18 March 2010. The unchanged proposal remains at an indicative offer price of 315p per share for the entire issued and to be issued share capital of Gulfsands and continues to be highly conditional and subject to due diligence and other material pre-conditions. The Board remains unanimously of the view that the proposal is wholly inadequate and materially undervalues the Company, particularly in light of recent newsflow, including the 25% increase in the Group's 2P working interest reserves for the year ended 31 December 2009, announced on 30 March 2010. Gulfsands welcomes the recent decision by The Panel on Takeovers and Mergers setting a deadline of 5pm on 11 May 2010 for the Consortium to either announce a firm intention to make an offer for Gulfsands or announce that it does not intend to make an offer for Gulfsands.
Comment: At least there is now a deadline for the ongoing offer to be either raised or dropped altogether. Our view is still that the current offer values Gulfsands fairly but that a higher control premium could be expected from such an offer and hence a final offer price could be closer to 350p. On current evidence, we also view the exploration potential of Block 26 in particular and Gulfsands in general as limited, although additional licences have now been entered into in Italy providing some hypothetical upside. Hence we are doubtful that the price of 400p per share announced by the Board at the onset will ever materialise, although we believe that an offer above 350p would trigger negotiations. It all depends now how “strategic” a price the Consortium is willing to put on the assets to justify overpaying for them.
Amerisur Resources Plc (LON:AMER) (AMER LN, 16.7p, ? (0.0%)) announced that it has conditionally raised approximately £13.7m before expenses by the issue of 82,888,530 new ordinary shares at a price of 16.5p per share, a discount of 1.5% to the closing mid-market price of 16.75p on 29 April 2010. Pursuant to the Placing, the New Ordinary Shares have been conditionally placed,…
