Deutsche Morgan offers to buy 7% of Ranbaxy promoter shares at Rs 700
Our Bureau
MUMBAI, January 13: Investment banker Deutsche Morgan Grenfell is understood to have evinced an interest in picking up Ranbaxy promoter Parvinder Singh's offer to sell 35 lakh equity shares in the company.This stake is part of Singh's promoter holdings and amounts to seven per cent of the company's share capital. Industry sources said that Deutsche Morgan has offered a price of Rs 700 per share. If this price is accepted, it would transalate into a realisation of Rs 245 crore for Parvinder Singh and his associates.The mandate is being handled by JM Financial. Ranbaxy officials dismissed the report as mere speculation and denied any such move. However, informed industry sources said that Singh's seven per cent equity will be parked with Deutsche Morgan and subsequently offloaded to institutional investors at the right price. Parvinder Singh's move to privately place his shares is said to have been prompted by a desire to de-leverage his position consequent to the debts underwritten for subscribing to
the warrants from the company's 1993 GDR issue. Singh and his associates have spent approximately Rs 200 crore towards converting their warrants into equity after the GDR issue, which was offered to them at Rs 400 per share as against an issue price of more than Rs 600 for the GDR. Parvinder Singh's plan to privately place 35 lakh Ranbaxy shares owned by him and his associates comes after his earlier attempts to place the equity failed to find favour with both the FIPB and institutional investors. The FIPB had reportedly turned down Singh's proposal to sell 35 lakh shares of Ranbaxy Laboratories to an offshore special purpose vehicle (SPV) following objections raised by the department of economic affairs (DEA) in the finance ministry and the department of company affairs over the sale of locked-in shares. Meanwhile, the Ranbaxy scrip today opened the day at Rs 695 and moved up to Rs 699.75. The scrip closed at Rs 690 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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