Norway's
SeaDrill ups bid for energy service rival Smedvig
AFP
OSLO
Petroleumworld.com 01 10 06
Norwegian oil services company SeaDrill on Monday made a new,
improved takeover bid for rival Smedvig that values the latter
at 15.1 billion Norwegian kroner (1.9 billion euros).
Three days after abandoning an earlier bid SeaDrill -- which already
owns more than 40 percent of voting rights in Smedvig and 37 percent
of its target's shares -- upped its offer to 205 kroner for every
voting right and 165 kroner for every ordinary share in the Norwegian
rig company.
After the new offer, Smedvig's shares rose on the Oslo stock exchange
to above the bid price on market speculation that rival Noble
Corp, which holds about five percent of Smedvig's stock, would
make a counter-offer.
"I expect Noble will make a competing offer," said rig
analyst Anders Bergland at Norse Securities.
Bergland said that if SeaDrill failed to win control of Smedvig,
it could still sell its existing Smedvig shares for a higher price
than it paid.
On Friday SeaDrill had withdrawn an initial offer of 201 kroner
per voting right and 160 kroner per Smedvig ordinary share.
AFP
01/09/06
Copyright
© 2006 AFP. All rights reserved
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