HYDERABAD, March 3: Chairman of the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Development Corporation Ltd (APIDC) has confirmed the physical handing over of 3,45,766 Raasi shares to India Cements as against the consideration of Rs 10.37 crore paid through a demand draft.Talking to "The Financial Express" on Tuesday, the chairman said the state owned finance corporation chairman N Yathiraja Rao said, "keeping in view the financial interest of Andhra Pradesh Industrial Development Corporation and considering that RCL had not responded despite repeated efforts, the board had decided to disinvest Rassi shares to ICL at a price of Rs 300 per share".
However, Rao said the legal department was examining the case in the wake of the Andhra Pradesh high court's "status quo" order on the sale. The court order was is received on Tuesday only, he added.
While this is so, India Cement has intimated the stock exchanges about the acquisition of Rassi shares from Andhra Pradesh Industrial Development Corporation. The deal wasbrokered by the Karvy Securities Ltd, which is the registrar to the public offer.
According to the company law experts, Rassi management can block the transfer of these shares also citing the court order which would mean a legal turn to the whole of the takeover process. They point out that earlier also RCL picked-up the court's status quo order as a weapon to block the transfer of 3,26,050 shares.
Thus, though ICL claims that it has shares of about 18 per cent in the overall paid-up equity of RCL, as on date it has only 4.96 per cent as per the Rassi management.
Further, the Rassi officials claim that the public offer made by India Cements will not be successful as most of the financial institutions will not unload their stake. According to them, the chairman B V Raju and the managing director K V Vishnu Raju are camping in Mumbai to persuade the financial institutions.
According to the stock market sources, out of 20 per cent equity stake by the financial institutions, a major chunk is held by theUnit Trust of India, which in all propositions could be off-loaded to improve their fund's net asset value. It may be difficult for them to keep away from offer price of Rs 300, they felt.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
