MUMBAI, FEB 25: The board of Indian Aluminium (Indal) would be meeting on Thursday to take stock of the situation arising out of the Sterlite Industries' open offer to take over the aluminium major. Top officials of Indal have already reached Mumbai and are closeted with the chiefs of financial institutions to ward off the Sterlite's take over bid.Interestingly, the Sterlite bid of Rs 90 has already become unattractive to Indal shareholders as the share price has already breached the Rs 90 ceiling on the Mumbai Stock Exchange. The scrip touched Rs 97 on the National Stock Exchange on Wednesday following heavy speculative support. A revised offer from the Sterlite cannot be ruled out, sources say.
But Tarun Jain, chief financial officer of Sterlite Industries told The Indian Express that under no circumstances is his company thinking of raising the offer price it had announced around a week ago of Rs 90 per share of Indal. ``We do not wish to respond to media reports in this regard. We are not eventhinking of raising the offer price already quoted,'' he said.
As per the SEBI guidelines, Indal board can now respond to Sterlite offer by recommending to the shareholders to sell its stake in response to the open offer, not to respond to the offer or reserve its judgment and allow the shareholder to exercise his or her discretion. Indal, however, cannot block the share transfer as in the case of Asian Paints as Sterlite offer is made as per the SEBI's takeover code.
As the top management of Indal is not supporting the takeover bid and would rather like Alcan, the 34.7 per cent Canadian owner of the company to raise its stake, a counter offer from Alcan is possible, sources say. ``We're considering various options before us. We are also in touch with officials of financial institutions,'' said an Indal official.
The Indal board, led by S M Datta as Chairman would be issuing a statement about the board's position soon after the meeting, the Indal official said.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
